Piemonte Calcio: 7 of the Worst Team Names in Unlicensed Football Video Games
By Tom Gott
FIFA 20 is not even out yet, but it was handed a huge blow as Pro Evolution Soccer struck a deal to exclusively own the rights to the Juventus name, badge and kits.
Fans of FIFA will have to get used to playing with their replacement, Piemonte Calcio, but this is hardly the first time we've seen some odd names featured in football games.
Here are seven of the most iconic fake team names in football video game history.
East Dorsetshire
The Pro Evolution Soccer series has often attracted a lot of undeserved criticism over the years, but sometimes they don't exactly help themselves.
PES have a habit of naming English teams after the counties in which they play but, in recent years, Bournemouth have been known as East Dorsetshire. Now, that may now sound like a real county, but it is not. East Dorset is, but not East Dorsetshire.
Was there any real need to add that 'shire'?
Dublin
As the capital of the Republic of Ireland, you would think that Dublin would have been the name given to an Irish side in PES 2, right? Wrong. So very wrong.
In fact, it was Aston Villa who were given that name. It looks like they were named after striker Dion Dublin, but surely not? Could PES really do that?
They seemingly realised just how ridiculous that was, so they soon changed over and thrust their love of county names on the Villans. West Midlandshire Village - sorry, West Midlands Village has been a staple in the series for many years now.
Niitsu Unicorn
Taking a break from PES, we switch over to the ever-popular Football Manager series. Their first ever standalone game, Football Manager 2005, was a real treat for fans, but not always for the right reasons.
Having failed to acquire the licenses for teams in Japan, FM opted to come up with completely random names for their clubs in the Japanese top flight. There were plenty of stunning names to choose from here, but the greatest certainly had to be Niitsu Unicorn.
That's not a team. That never has been a team and that never will be a team. However, I bet you wish it was.
Rekordmeister
PES have had a love-hate relationship with Bayern Munich over the years, even though the company seemingly tried their hardest to keep them happy.
In both PES 3 & 4, Bayern were known simply as Rekordmeister - 'The Record Champions'. No place names, just a declaration of their greatness and dominance over the rest of the Bundesliga.
They were then named after the river Isar, before eventually being removed from the game a few years later.
Lake District
For those unaware, the Lake District is a region in North West England which is full of - you guessed it - lakes. So, about as polar opposite to London as you can possibly imagine.
Somebody needed to tell the creators of PES 2 that, because they decided to name West Ham United after the Lake District, despite the fact they could hardly be further away in England.
In the first PES game, they were known as 'Westham', but someone who was paid actual money decided to come in and change that to Lake District.
Aragon
Aragon is a region in Spain. Aragon was also the name of a 19th-century warship. Never has there been any links to between Aragon and Manchester, until the infamous PES 2 came about.
That's right, Manchester United were given the name Aragon in that game, and nobody really knows why. The name didn't last long, but their replacement was hardly much better.
In PES 3, the Red Devils were given the name Trad Bricks. Trad. Bricks. They even played at Trad Brick Stadium, which doesn't have the same ring to it as Old Trafford.
Kebab Shop
This one is cheating a little bit, in that it was never actually intended to be a real team. However, how can you overlook the absolute gem that was Sensible Soccer?
The developers wanted to ensure people had fun with the game, so they created a number of custom teams. There was the famous 'Cheese Board', which was full of players named after cheeses, but the clear winner was 'Kebab Shop'.
The dominant midfield pairing of 'Can of Drink' and 'Spicy Potatoes' was sublime, and the terrifying strike force of 'Cheeseburger' and 'Small Doner' were everything you could want from your attackers. Like Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke, only tastier.
