The luckiest animal mascots in European football

Written by Pavel Kateliev

Pavel Kateliev

Pavel Kateliev is a popular sport journalist, particularly in the fields of football, basketball, tennis, and hockey. He writes daily for Sportingpedia and his work has been translated into at least 20 languages and featured on renowned outlets such as BBC, Yahoo, MCN, Sun, and Evening News, in Italian, English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

, | Updated: September 11, 2024

The audience is a football team’s twelfth player and clubs do their best to foster a sense of community with their fans, as well as providing an entertaining matchday experience. Seagulls, bears, racoons, and all manner of other fauna, march around European football stadiums as mascots, and besides whipping up excitement in the crowd, they are thought to bring good luck to their teams.

But which animal is the luckiest? To find out, the team at SportingPedia collected information about the achievements of this season’s top tier football teams in the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1. We then calculated the number of the two major trophies in European football – the domestic and the Champions League titles associated with each type of animal mascot.

It turns out that the animal with the greatest number of titles to its credit is the lion, with an astonishing haul of 46. However, given that there are 11 such mascots within the top tier of the five most major football leagues in Europe, each lion’s success rate is a slightly less impressive with only 4.18 titles per mascot, putting it in 14th position.

Methodology

When compiling this report, our team at SportingPedia gathered data from the Champions League (former European Cup) and the highest level of the five major European football leagues – those in England, Spain, Germany, Italy, and France, as well as their official predecessors: First Division of the Premier League, German football championship of Bundesliga, Italian Football Championship/Prima Divisione of Serie A, and National/Division 1 of Ligue 1.

The Big Picture

According to our research findings, among the 96 elite teams in England, Spain, Germany, France, and Italy, a substantial majority of 67 have embraced living or mythical creatures as their mascots. Analyzing this statistic on a per-league basis, it becomes apparent that the English Premier League and the Italian Serie A stand out, with 15 out of the 20 teams in each league featuring an animal mascot. At 75% this represents the most significant ratio among the leagues under examination. Comparable situations have emerged in France and Germany, where the figures show 72%. On the other hand, the Spanish teams have demonstrated the lowest affinity for animal-themed mascots, as only 55% of them have adopted such representations.

Top 10 Animal Mascots That Have Brought The Most Titles

The zebra is the mascot with the best titles-per-mascot ratio of 38:1, followed by the liver bird with 25:1, and the snake with 22:1. Other animals whose representative mascots boast notable achievements are a dinosaur, a racoon, a griffin, two elephants, four bears, a bat, and two lynxes. However, Devils* (Fred the Red and Milanello) are the luckiest non-animal mascots in European football having 39 domestic league and 10 Champions League titles, or a ratio of 16.33 per individual mascot.
* Despite the devil not being a biological animal we have included it in the research because it is mainly presented to the public as a mythical creature.

Zebra

• Number of mascots: 1 – Juventus
• Domestic league titles: 36
• Champions League titles: 2

Jay the Zebra of Juventus is the football mascot currently holding the highest number of titles in Europe. The Old Lady won Serie A a record 36 times between 1905 and 2020, and twice managed to achieve the most coveted victory in club football, the Champions League Final, in 1985 and 1996. Although historically the Italian team Udinese or “little zebras” have had a zebra mascot, there has been no official zebra mascot in recent years, and are therefore here as an honourable mention but not included in our official ranking.

Liver bird

• Number of mascots: 1 – Liverpool
• Domestic league titles: 19
• Champions League titles: 6

Based on Liverpool’s famous liver bird crest, Mighty Red is among the most popular football mascots of all time. According to the club’s official website, the iconic red bird has had more than 20,000 appearances to date and enjoys the love of adult and child fans alike. Mighty Red was only brought to life in walking, talking mascot form in 2012 but since the bird has always been associated with Liverpool, we are inclined to attribute all of Liverpool FC’s 19 Premier League and 6 Champions League titles to it.

Snake

• Number of mascots: 1 – Inter Milan
• Domestic league titles: 19
• Champions League titles: 3

The biscione snake, although not the cuddliest European football mascot, has been the symbol of Inter Milan and its on and off mascot since its founding in 1908. The first national title seized under the biscione snake mascot was brought back in 1910, and was followed by 18 more, with the most recent being won during the 2020/21 season. Inter Milan has also won the Champions League three times, in 1964, 1965, and 2010.

Dinosaur

• Number of mascots: 1 – Arsenal
• Domestic league titles: 13
• Champions League titles: 0

Arsenal’s affable Gunnersaurus Rex, one of football’s most recognisable mascots, is the only dinosaur to represent a top-tier European football team. It has seen good and bad times, including a temporary dismissal in 2020 when German football player Mesut Ozil even offered to pay its wages. The team has never won the Champions League but was at the top of the Premier League 13 times between 1931 and 2004.

Racoon

• Number of mascots: 1 – Atlético Madrid
• Domestic league titles: 11
• Champions League titles: 0

Indi the Racoon of Atlético Madrid comes in next with 11 La Liga titles, bringing home the latest in 2021. This lovable racoon mascot is dressed in a Native American Apache costume and is associated with the club supporters’ nicknames for the players, “Indios”. In 2017, Indi underwent a complete makeover and was given a more contemporary look.

Griffin

• Number of mascots: 1 – Genoa
• Domestic league titles: 9
• Champions League titles: 0

We wouldn’t say that the Griffin mascot of Genoa is among the cutest across the stadiums in Europe, but it is undeniably a fan favourite and has brought the club plenty of success in the past. The Italian team has an enviable 9 national titles to its credit, albeit quite some time ago, between 1898 and 1924.

Elephant

• Number of mascots: 2 – Monaco, Everton
• Domestic league titles: 17
• Champions League titles: 0

Elephants are the next most effective animal in European football. With 17 national titles under their belts. Everton’s Changy secured 9 Premier League titles, before retiring in 2018, and Monaco’s Bouba charmed its way to 8 Ligue 1 titles. Bouba was “born” in the early 1970s and disappeared for a long time, but made a glorious comeback in 2016 boosting AC Monaco’s Facebook fan base to over 4 million users. Nowadays Bouba and AC Monaco boast a facebook follower count exceeding 10 million.

Bear

• Number of mascots: 4 – Bournemouth, Bayern Munich, 1. FC Heidenheim 1846, Getafe
• Domestic league titles: 33
• Champions League titles: 6

There are four official bear mascots among the top European football teams, namely Bayern Munich, 1. FC Heidenheim 1846, Bournemouth, and Getafe. Bears are lagging behind other mascot animals in terms of their power to bring their teams good luck. Only Berni of Bayern Munich has had any notable achievements, with 33 Bundesliga and six Champions League titles. In terms of individual domestic titles in particular, Berni is only out performed by Jay the Zebra, who currently has 36.

Bat

• Number of mascots: 1 – Valencia
• Domestic league titles: 6
• Champions League titles: 0

The second to last animal in our report is a bat, which can be seen both on the crest of the Valencia football team and cheering the crowd at the stadium as the club’s official mascot, Rat Penat. Although confusingly named “Rat”, this bat helped Valencia win La Liga six times in the period between 1942 and 2004.

Lynx

• Number of mascots: 2 – Paris Saint-Germain, Granada
• Domestic league titles: 11
• Champions League titles: 0

It is a little-known fact that Paris’ Saint-Germain, with 11 titles in Ligue 1, is not the only top European football team whose mascot is a lynx. Max of Granada, promoted this year from the Spanish Segunda División to La Liga, is not as famous as PSG’s Germain, and has not yet helped Los Nazaríes to win a title, but surely enjoys the love of fans nonetheless.

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