AFC Bournemouth record signing Jefferson Lerma is hopeful that the universal language of football will help him whilst he studies to learn English.
The Cherries broke their transfer record to sign the Colombia international from Spanish side Levante over the summer.
The cost of the transfer was reported to be in excess of £25million.
The Cherries also signed Diego Rico for £10.7million, with the Spanish left-back also unable to speak English.
Neither player was involved in AFC Bournemouth’s opening day victory over Cardiff City, Lerma hasn’t trained much since the World Cup so will be playing catch up with his fitness, whilst Rico is currently serving a 3 game ban.
Whilst a squad packed with multi-nationals is the norm amongst most Premier League sides, it is still something the Cherries are looking to expand upon, with AFC Bournemouth’s so-called foreign stars all homegrown players as they have spent so much time at a young age within the English football system.
Lerma told the Daily Echo…
“I am working hard and I should pick up the language as quickly as possible to facilitate my stay here.
“At the moment we are communicating through an interpreter but, in football it does not need a language. My other team-mates are trying to help me as well.”
“It helps a lot that we are together (Jefferson Lerma and Diego Rico) here and both of us speak Spanish, That will make it easier for both of us to learn English as quickly as possible…”
He added…
“I am very happy for the transfer. It’s a historical transfer for my life.
Your say…
kirsikka wrote…
You should only need a relatively limited vocab to communicate on a pitch and he should pick that up pretty fast.
Anyone that’s played a summer kickabout with a group of multinational students in the Bournemouth environs knows you can pick up the main calls used in football in another language inside an hour or two of kicking it around.
Complex tactical instructions sent on by the manager may be a little trickier but you’d think anything being communicated would have been worked on at some point in training so even then he should be able to get the message with the help of a simple diagram on one of those notes. – Join the conversation, click here.
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