Football's strangest club badges

Al Jazira's midfielder Ibrahim Diaky, left, vies for the ball against Tractorsazi midfielder Mehdi Karimian. AFP

Al Jazira's defeat in their opening Asian Champions League fixture with Tractor Sazi not only highlighted the team's shortcomings, it highlighted the quirky club crest of their Iranian opponents.  Here's five of football's wackiest badges.

The Major League Soccer team’s badge features three men in construction hats. They are meant to be representing the hard-working blue-collar population of Columbus, Ohio.

It is one of the few club logos around that features people, rather than symbols, even if the trio look like the could easily be members of the Village People.

Nothing like a tractor to put fear into the minds of the opposition. Al Jazira faced off yesterday against the Iranian club, who come from Tabriz, near the Azerbaijan border.

The logo stems from when the club were formed in 1970 by the Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company, though they are now majority owned by Iran’s revolutionary guards.

You could fill this entire page with African badges. What about Blackburn Rovers, the South African version, whose motto is “You hit me, we hit you”, or Office du Niger Sports from Mali, whose logo features a tomato and an onion.

But this team win the top prize, possibly the best football team name in the world.

Dogs, lions, tigers – all fairly common on football crests the world over. But an octopus?

Nobody is sure how this team from Albania ended up with an eight-legged sea creature on their badge. Lushnja is 20 miles from the coast.

Maybe it is a tribute to the flowing locks of the Argentine legend Mario Kempes, who was once coach there.

An American-Indian chief and a club from East Flanders are not a natural match. Gent, whose best achievement was coming runners-up twice in the defunct Inter-Toto Cup, are nicknamed “The Buffalos”.

A visit to the city from Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Circus early in the past century apparently was the inspiration for the logo.