Thomas Tuchel’s side is back in Champions League action against Malmö on Wednesday night. Just ahead of the game, UEFA has released a list of languages every player speaks, so the journos and broadcasters from around the world know what languages the players can communicate in and who they can interview, thanks to the intense popularity of the Champions League games.
And what catches the eye is the number of languages mentioned in Romelu Lukaku’s column. Needless to say, football fans are flabbergasted by the multi-lingual prowess of the Chelsea striker.
The list reveals he can speak the following eight languages: French, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Flemish and Italian, possibly making him the most multi-lingual footballer in the world. The list appears fascinating at first look as they couldn’t fit Lukaku’s long array of languages in the box of the official document.
UEFA sends through a list of languages that each player speaks so media from around the world know who they can interview.
Lukaku can speak an additional ninth language not mentioned in the list – the Bantu language of Lingala, which he has acquired to learn due to his Congolese ancestry, making his total count of known languages to 9. NINE is an impressive number by all means!
Lukaku was born in Antwerp, Belgium and spent quite some of his footballing life in Italy and England. So, it’s understandable that he’s fluent in Belgian, Italian and English. But it’s the 28-year-old’s penchant for learning languages that has enabled him to speak the rest of the lingoes mentioned in the list.
Lukaku has expressed that learning multiple languages has helped him on and off the pitch, as he feels that communicating to his teammates in their native languages is paramount to expressing himself clearly.
While that’s a LinkedIn worthy language count for Lukaku, some of his fellow mates at Chelsea have an impressive number as well.
Mateo Kovacic can speak 5 languages – Croatian, Spanish, German, Italian, and English, while Marcos Alonso, Cesar Azpilicueta, Thiago Silva and Jorginho can each speak three languages fluently.
It’s just unfortunate that Romelu Lukaku doesn’t play for an Indian club, or the Belgian national would have had a dozen more languages up his sleeve.
