![]() I was really getting berated by the opposition fans so one of the stewards took me into the tunnel for my own protection.” “Later in the game, it came to me again and it was wedged between the seat next to me and another so I got it and kept it for about five seconds before rolling it slowly forwards towards the pitch. The opposition wanted it back to get on with an attack but I just threw it to another one of our players. Once I was at a game and was just behind the bench and the ball came to me. “Sometimes, if Antonio did something wrong, Jewell would turn to me during a game and say ‘Fucking hell Phil!’ If he didn’t get a cross in, or turned back and passed instead of taking someone on, Paul would glare at me and the other subs would be giggling as if it was my fault and I hadn’t told him. If Valencia was among the substitutes, he would be sat next to him on the bench. “The press officer Ed was brought up in Switzerland and spoke excellent French, so he ended up doing bits of interpreting for some signings, but they had nobody to help Antonio - so I came in.”ĭickinson would find himself occasionally tasked with shadowing Valencia in training and then on match days he would be in the changing room with him before the game and at half-time. “At the time, Wigan didn’t have any Spanish-speaking players,” Dickinson tells The Athletic. When Wigan Athletic signed Ecuador winger Antonio Valencia on loan from Villarreal in 2006, Dickinson got the call to go and help manager Paul Jewell. It helps that Dickinson is a football fan too - and has found himself being used by clubs to help during training and even before and after games. He also runs Premier Language Solutions, a firm that provides interpreters used by many Premier League clubs to help players break through language barriers. He did Eric Cantona’s first briefing after the Frenchman left Leeds for Manchester United and he counts translating for Diego Maradona before a friendly between Argentina and Scotland at Hampden Park 14 years ago as one of his most pressurised moments. Phil Dickinson works as a Spanish and French interpreter for football clubs and national teams around the world. Some help with media interviews while others are involved in a more hands-on manner. The job specification for interpreters in professional football can be surprisingly varied. At the same time, interpreters helped Bielsa on the training pitch and with his media duties, while the club offered intensive English classes to all his staff to ensure they could help. As a bonus, he speaks multiple languages including Spanish, French, Italian and German. Grice’s role at Elland Road is based around player care and team logistics. 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.īut what happens when a player arrives in England with no command of the language and no native speakers in the dressing room?įrom Marouane Fellaini at Everton to Roman Pavlyuchenko at Tottenham, many Premier League imports have struggled to pick up the language at first.Ĭlubs have adapted to the challenge, with many now hiring liaison staff skilled in several different languages.Īt Leeds United, where former manager Marcelo Bielsa worked with a translator to get his message across from Spanish, a key appointment was operational team manager Matt Grice, who joined from Manchester United. 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. In January, Everton signed Ukraine international Vitalii Mykolenko from Dynamo Kyiv. ![]() The challenge can be bigger when there are no other native speakers already at a club who can help translate. If they didn’t explain it to me, I’d enter the field with no idea what to do.” “They sit next to me and explain what I have to do. “They are the translators when Klopp talks to the group,” Nunez told TNT Sports Brasil. “I don’t know English, he doesn’t know Spanish.”įortunately 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. Liverpool’s summer signing Darwin Nunez has admitted he does not understand manager Jurgen Klopp yet.
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