Language of sports

By THOMAS HUKAHU
ON Sunday (Nov 13), the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup matches will kick off in Port Moresby.
In the Sir John Guise Stadium, Sweden will take on Korea at 4pm. Away at Bava Park, Spain will take on Canada at the same time.
Then at 7.00pm, PNG will take on Brazil at the Sir John Guise Stadium while Japan will take on Nigeria at the Bava Park.
The Japanese and United States’ teams were here in May for a Tri-Nations Friendly Tournament with our PNG team. They will be among the 16 nations participating in this U-20 women’s tournament.

Football and languages galore
Have you realised that international footballers (or athletes) and officials often need to use languages other than their mother tongue?
If a player or coach is hired by a non-English-speaking team in Spain or France, it would be beneficial for the athlete or manager to converse with players and officials in the team in their mother tongue.
In January, I was following a BBC news story about the former French men’s football team captain and maestro, Zinedine Zidane, who was about to take on the role as the new manager of Real Madrid FC, the Spanish football (soccer) giant.
BBC caught up with former French international and Zinedine’s team mate, Christian Karembeu, and asked him how he thought his former skipper would handle the new job.
Karembeu, a New Caledonian, said in English that Zinedine would do just fine as a coach – in the same way that he did well as a player.
(I noted then that for a French player, Karembeu’s English was good.)
In another story, when Zinedine was preparing to take Barcelona to the finals of the UEFA, he was asked – in Spanish – about his plans for the team and among other things, he said the players knew what they would do as well as they would “correr, correr (run, run)”.
A few weeks ago, I was watching a video where Lionel Messi, the Argentinian who plays for Barcelona FC, was interviewed about his time at the Spanish club.
He said he was grateful for the Brazilians in Barcelona – like Ronaldinho – who took him on as a “young brother’ when he made it into the first team as a teenager.
(It is likely that the Argentinian and Brazilians must have communicated in Spanish – on and off the pitch.)
In the video, Ronaldinho spoke very highly of Messi and their playing together for the La Liga team. (He, a Portuguese-speaking professional, was speaking in Spanish.)
When Ronaldinho was asked who the greatest player was, he just smiled and said: “Messi. Siempre Messi (Messi. Always Messi).”
I was again impressed by the language skills of international footballers.

Ready to support your team
It is not only the players and coaches from different countries playing together who need to communicate in one language, regardless of their nationalities.
Supporters too must learn to support their favourite team in the team’s language.
So, the big question is: Are you ready to support your favourite team in this U-20 World Cup?
And I do not mean just our local PNG girls. I am talking about the other 15 visiting teams. In addition to PNG, which team will you support?
It will be a great time to take your friends and family members along to scream for your favourite teams.
And here is where I raise a point that I made a few months back when we had international teams visiting and playing our local sides.
To fully support the non-English-speaking teams, it would require you to learn some basic phrases that we often use to call out for our teams in English or Tok Pisin in our local football (soccer) competitions.
I urge you to do your homework, learn some phrases and go out and give your team the best of your calls.
Think about an example, if I was calling as a supporter, in English.
I could be calling out like: “No, number 7, not like that. Play to the left. Yes, that is it.
“Good one. Come on, number 9, play first time!”
Well, this is just an example.
Think about phrases that we use and learn those phrases in French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, or Japanese to use while you are screaming from the stand.
(Personally, I am for the French team, as I have been supporting and studying their men’s team for almost 20 years now. I will also support the Brazilians and possibly two others.)

Some phrases in German and Spanish
You might want to do this. Go online and find phrases in the language of your favourite foreign team and copy them down in a notebook to carry along with you to the field. (Google translate is a good application to use too.)
To start with, here are some useful phrases in English, German and Spanish:
To the left … Nach links … A la izquierda.
To the right … Auf der rechten Seite … A la derecha.
Not to the back … Nicht nach hinten … No a la espalda.
To the front … Nach vorne … Al frente.
Here … hier … aquí.
There … dort … ahí.
Come on number 7 … Kommen Sie auf Nummer Sieben … Vamos número siete.
Play well … gut spielen … jugar bien.

Add your own phrases
Use the examples given and add more phrases that you take with you to the football pitches to make your supporting really meaningful.
See that the knowledge of numbers (numbers) would be useful here too – at least, for one to 20.
You might want to visit YouTube and learn some basic phrases in the language of your favourite team.
Enjoy the games.
Good luck! Viel Glück! Buena suerte!