How do clubs account for foreign players in training?

[Andy S]

Football is a universal language on its own. As far as English people are concerned you just have to shout it loudly and all foreign people will understand what you are talking about. But seriously if there is a need to get people to understand there is always a way. The finer points may need a little more work

[Holders]

The company I used to work for employed contractors from around the world. One who used to do a lot of jobs for us was a Serbian. One day the Project Manager came into my office and wanted me to recruit him again so I called on speakerphone and a lady answered (his mother as it turned out). I said who we were and asked for Marjan. "Leider er is nicht hier" said his mother. Obviously she couldn't speak English so we carried on in the same language and arranged to speak the following day.

When I rang off the PM's jaw was sagging "I didn't know you could speak Serbian". Now, do I let him think that I can or do I embarrass him by having to explain that it was German and it's not Serbian but Serbo-Croat anyway?

The moral of the story is that his mother was older, probably from the Tito era, and didn't speak English. Younger people will have got it post-Tito at school and probably picked it up as well as we in the UK who are made to do 5 years of French. Besides, it's much easier to learn a language in the country itself. Lukic will be fine. Portuguese would likely be more use anyway!

Very interesting story and everything you said about Serbia is true.

In Yugoslavia, English wasn't taught in schools, some other languages were, including German in some parts. Serbian and Croatian are the same language, during Yugoslavia times it was called srpskohrvatski(serbo-croat) in Serbia and hrvatskosrpski(croat-serbian) in Croatia. We understand each other perfectly. Same goes with Montenegro and Bosnia & Herzegovina, while Slovenians speak a slightly different language that's not that easy to understand (differences between Serbian and Croatian are somewhere between the differences between UK English and US English and Brazilian Portuguese and Portugal Portuguese).

In recent years English became a compulsory subject and you have it in school every year, so you have at least 8 years of English classes, and usually you have an additional 3 or 4, because most kids choose to go to high schools. So like you said, older people usually don't speak it well/at all, but younger people usually do.

I'm sure Lukic knows the basics and will do just fine on the training ground/in a match.

I once knew a Serbian retired former football agent whose name was Sava. With his English wife, he went to live in France where the locals delighted in greeting him with "Ça va, Sava?".

[FFCsince64]

Fooled me.  I thought the lingua franca of FFC was Portuguese.

[General]

Fooled me.  I thought the lingua franca of FFC was Portuguese.

There are 14 or 15 native English speaking players at the club, not to mention the rest will speak in English as their second language.

I know you're saying it tongue in cheek but nevertheless.

[Willham]

I have to say I'm very surprised that he's that bad at English. He had at least 8-12 years of classes at school (depending on whether he chose to go to middle school or not, English is a mandatory subject in Serbia, so had it for 8 years at the very least). Maybe he's just not confident enough in his English to do an interview?

This paragraph had me all confused until I realised you are from serbia,

Because in England, most children are taught German and/or French for 8-12 years but like myself, correct me if other schools/areas are different but most of my classmates and myself knew zero French when leaving school.

I can say hello in two different ways but it ends there, I think I can also tell you my name, but I wouldn't know if you had asked my name.

I've just had a little giggle as this whole page, plus myself, reflects the british arrogance (but the French are worse 😉)

[SerbianLad]

I have to say I'm very surprised that he's that bad at English. He had at least 8-12 years of classes at school (depending on whether he chose to go to middle school or not, English is a mandatory subject in Serbia, so had it for 8 years at the very least). Maybe he's just not confident enough in his English to do an interview?

This paragraph had me all confused until I realised you are from serbia,

Because in England, most children are taught German and/or French for 8-12 years but like myself, correct me if other schools/areas are different but most of my classmates and myself knew zero French when leaving school.

I can say hello in two different ways but it ends there, I think I can also tell you my name, but I wouldn't know if you had asked my name.

I've just had a little giggle as this whole page, plus myself, reflects the british arrogance (but the French are worse 😉)

People usually speak English quite well, pop culture helps as well, movies, tv series, celebrities etc from USA and UK are very popular here, as well as the Premier League and the NBA. There are lots of kids who play online video games or watch youtube too, so that coupled with 8-12 years of learning it in school meams that pretty much 99% percent of the younger population speak it well.

We also learn a second foreign language for 4-8 years, most commonly German, but in some schools you can pick between German, French or Russian (or 2 of those three). Of course if you pick a language-oriented high school you may learn up to 4-5 different languages in school before university.

[mrmicawbers]

Long interview,probably best to have it translated.