Welcome one and all to a Football Circus which is decidedly different from our usual efforts. As a break from the norm, we're this week taking a look at language in football and the importance of communication between a manager and players. Football is often said to be a universal language, however we're not so sure...
Having closely watched Louis van Gaal since he took over at Manchester United, we've noticed his over-usage of certain phrases. You may recall the word 'process' was used by him on countless occasions over the summer:
"I cannot talk about these rumours. I have said in a lot of press conferences that it's a process. Maybe Mr Ramos is in the process - you never know".
"I can’t tell you about these events and I have said it before. All we are doing is guiding a process and in that process we make decisions".
Prior to the 'process', there was the 'philosophy'. LVG has often harped on about his philosophy and how important it is that his players adhere to it. Quite what this so called 'philosophy' is, we're not sure. Maybe it is a way of thinking about the game, a certain style of playing that van Gaal believes in 110%. Or maybe both the 'philosophy' and the 'process', are go to words which are used by a man who doesn't use English as his first language and overuses certain words as a coping mechanism. We are merely speculating here. Even if it is a case of the latter, Mr. van Gaal certainly has a far better grasp of the English language than we do of the Dutch, so we are in no position to criticise. But take a look at the the David de Gea transfer situation over the summer. A situation unfolded whereby van Gaal became irate with the press after he had made the following comments:
"We have a goalkeeping coach, Frans Hoek, I’m not doing everything alone.
"Frans Hoek, he has a meeting with David de Gea and he asks him ‘Do you want to play?’ ‘No.’
"Then I have to take the decision".
Cue newspaper headlines a la:
"David de Gea doesn't want to play for Manchester United, claims Louis van Gaal".
We don't really see the problem with the headlines - a fairly cut and dry statement was made by van Gaal. His comments in his next press conference though, suggested he was irked:
"When I say something the media puts it into another context.
"I have seen that with my words on De Gea".
Right you are Louis. Perhaps van Gaal had not intended to claim that de Gea was refusing to play, but that's exactly what he did - the media didn't make that one up. If the British media, a group of people whom we would suspect have a fairly decent knowledge of the English language, can so easily misinterpret comments from LVG, how many messages fail to be properly communicated amongst his playing squad on a daily basis? It all seems like a farcical way to run a professional football club.
But van Gaal is definitely not the only manager or player we've noticed struggle with a language he may not be 100% familiar with. Giovanni Trapattoni was notorious for giving limited or basic interviews whilst managing the Irish national team, and that was even with a translator by his side at all times.
And remember Eden Hazard last season referring to Shrewsbury as "strawberry"?
Steve McClaren and Joey Barton both hilariously attempted to take on the accent of the region in which they managed / played, in efforts to compensate for their ignorance of the local language, whilst at Twente and Marseille respectively.
But this is just skimming the surface. Think of how many players and managers of various foreign nationalities make up the numbers in the top leagues across Europe. Long gone are the days when Champions League match day squads were limited to three foreigners. We're not necessarily claiming the influx of foreign players and managers to a league is a bad thing. Afterall, what would the Premier League have been without Wenger? La Liga without Ronaldo? Or Serie A without Zidane? A certain footballing cutural enrichment has been witnessed over the past decade and a half. What we are doing though, is wondering whether football teams nowadays are suffering because of a communication breakdown.
To investigate the matter in a little more detail we've compiled some data from the teams that made up last season's Champions League competition. We've taken the manager and starting eleven from the last match played by each team in the 2014/15 Champions League and listed their native tongue. We must stress that the information provided may not be 100% accurate - our data was gleamed solely from Google searches and Wikipedia so in the cases of some of the players listed, there may be errors (we're looking your way Belgians and Swiss - you delicious chocolate making, multi-lingual confusing gits). That said, most of the info should be correct and we would like to think it makes for interesting reading. You will see how many various languages are used by each of the teams studied and how many (or few, as the case may be), have the majority of their team speaking the language native to country the team is from.
To view the data, click on the link below:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b9cjE9xiApo3qD3mZVMQkHgehYdUWP4k7PCrsDBMwB8/edit?usp=sharing
- Of the last four teams that were left in the competition (Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Real Madrid), each of the teams had at least five of their starting lineup / manager combination who spoke the language of the country their team is native to.
- Indeed Barcelona, the eventual winners, had as many as eight Spanish speakers, while Juventus had six Italian speakers.
- Of the nine teams in the competition who had less than five of the starting lineup / manager combination who spoke their team's country's native tongue, none of the teams made it further than the quarter finals.
- The largest variation of languages was seven, with Basel, Roma and Zenit topping the league for this particular feat. Only Basel progressed past the group stage.
- Conversely, the smallest variation of languages was just two, with this record being held by Athletic Bilbao and BATE Borisov. Neither of these teams made it out of their group.
- Of the four English teams in the competition, only Liverpool had more than five of their starting lineup / manager combo who spoke English. Chelsea and Man City had just two, whilst Arsenal had a paltry one.
So what conclusions can be drawn? Well judging by Athletic Bilbao and BATE Borisov, having a team and manager speaking mostly the same language, doesn't directly translate into success. However the Romas, Arsenals, Chelseas and Man Citys of the competition may testify that a team full of players who don't fully understand each other, won't get you very far. With that being said, the English teams do not seem to have changed their ways. City started their Champions League game on Wednesday with just two English speaking players; Arsenal started against Olympiakos (a game which they lost 3-2) with just three English speaking players; and Chelsea started their 2-1 defeat to Porto with just one English speaker in Gary Cahill. The other English team in the competition this season, Manchester United, started just two English speaking players against Wolfsburg.
The teams who went furthest in the 2014/15 Champions League seem to have found a recipe for success by blending some quality foreign players with a core group of speakers of their country's native tongue. We certainly feel that communication and understanding on the pitch, in the dressing room and in the training ground, are as imperative to the success and development of a team as the millions that are pumped into and out of clubs annually.
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