Football, as they say, is a universal language and usually the lingua franca is English. From Rio to Reykjavik, youngsters might understand words like ‘shoot’ or ‘pass’, ‘goal’ or ‘save’.
But what about the professional game — when the instructions can be a little more complicated?
With an estimated 63 per cent of players in the Premier League being foreign, there can often be logistical issues to deal with when they join a club in the United Kingdom for the first time with a limited grasp of English.
Liverpool’s summer signing Darwin Nunez has admitted he does not understand manager Jurgen Klopp yet. “We don’t talk much,” he said. “I don’t know English, he doesn’t know Spanish.”
Fortunately for the £85million ($94m) striker, Liverpool’s assistant manager Pep Lijnders and another coach Vitor Matos speak Portuguese, so they are able to get the message across.
“They are the translators when Klopp talks to the group,” Nunez told TNT Sports Brasil. “They sit next to me and explain what I have to do. If they didn’t explain it to me, I’d enter the field with no idea what to do.”
The challenge can be bigger when there are no other native speakers already at a club who can help translate.
In January, Everton signed Ukraine international Vitalii Mykolenko from Dynamo Kyiv. The 23-year-old is the only Ukrainian at the club and gave his first interview in his native language with subtitles on the club’s media.
That, The Athletic understands, was more of a confidence issue. The defender actually possessed enough English to get by, has improved since and was given plenty of support to learn more as he adapts to life in Merseyside.
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