The team that finishes last in a league standings gets a different nickname depending on the country: in Spain it's called "el farolillo" (the little red lantern), in Italy the "maglia nera", in the UK the "wooden spoon", in France the "lanterne rouge" and in Germany "die rote Laterne". They all trace back to 19th- and 20th-century cycling, and football borrowed them as informal nicknames for the bottom club.
"Farolillo" (or farolillo rojo, red lantern) is the informal Spanish nickname for the team or participant sitting at the bottom of a standings table. The term comes from cycling, where the rider trailing the pack carried a lantern so the broom wagon knew where the back of the group was.
Every country has its own — sometimes affectionate, sometimes not — nickname for the team that finishes last in the table. It's the kind of nickname that comes up in every sports chat whenever a team sinks to the bottom, and it changes completely depending on where you are. Here's a quick tour of football around the world and what each league calls its very own last-placed team.
In Spain, the last-placed team carries "el farolillo". The image comes from cycling, where the rider closing out the pack literally carried a lit lantern on their bike so the broom wagon knew where they were. Over time the term crossed over into football and stuck for good: nobody wants to be LaLiga's farolillo.
In the English-speaking world, especially in rugby and also in football, the team that finishes last is symbolically handed the "wooden spoon". The tradition traces back to 19th-century British universities, where a wooden spoon was awarded to the student with the worst grades as a joke. English football borrowed the term in the same tongue-in-cheek spirit.
The Giro d'Italia used to have the "maglia nera" (black jersey), an unofficial award for the rider who finished last in the general classification, as a counterpart to the leader's pink jersey. Italian football borrowed the concept: Serie A's bottom club also carries its own maglia nera.
The Portuguese have their own version: "o lanterninha" (the little lantern), an affectionate diminutive that softens the blow of finishing last in the Primeira Liga a little.
Just like in Spain, France uses the image of the lantern: "la lanterne rouge" (the red lantern). The origin is exactly the same — cycling — and the term applies both to the rider trailing the Tour de France and to the team that finishes bottom of Ligue 1.
Germans use the same railway-and-cycling metaphor: "die rote Laterne" (the red lantern). It's practically identical in meaning and imagery to the French version: the light that marks the end of the convoy.
Whatever it's called in each country, nobody wants to be the farolillo, the wooden spoon or the maglia nera of their league. The good news is your own football prediction pool has one too, and everyone knows exactly who it is. On Match Prophets you can check your league's full standings at any time, on top of comparing yourself against the global and country rankings for each of the 9 competitions the app covers.
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