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Communication key in international sports
To the editor:
Football is camaraderie. Football is teamwork and unity between a group of players, male or female, working to a common end; winning the game of course. Anyone that says winning is not everything clearly is not playing football. Football is a game of finesse, logic, skill, athleticism, strategy, and, yes, some bad acting sometimes. Right now, though I bet a great deal of people do not know this, the world is united in watching some good quality female footballers in Germany.
In case the reader has not caught on, I am talking about what we Americans call soccer. I wonder how many people were nodding up a storm until they realized I was not talking about American football. Soccer, or football, as the other 6.4 billion denizens of our world know the sport, does draw together all of those elements in what is, despite many criticisms of the past, a very fast-paced game. Granted there are not massive goal totals typically in international Soccer matches; if you want a game with huge goal totals watch lacrosse (Cornell's men's team scored fewer than 10 goals only four times in 17 games this past season).
However, what I was really going to get at is not how beautiful The Beautiful Game is to watch, play and coach. What I was really going to get at is what a disadvantage English is as a language to footballers of the Western Hemisphere. Americans, Canadians, English, Aussie and New Zealand squads (the Aussies and Kiwis count as Westerners overall I think) all speak English predominantly. Additionally, many European, Asian, African and South American children learn both their native language and English in school as children.
Soccer is a game of strategy and logic as much as it is skill and athleticism in much the any other sport. In other sports, though, we rely on hand signals, hushed huddles and time out/halftime planning amongst other things. Watching a Soccer match, and in my own experience coaching, instructions and plans are usually just yelled across the pitch as plays develop and they require a quick ear, a quick foot and trust in your players. What does this have to do with the English language? England is playing France today as I write this. Odds are many of the French players, we can say very conservatively seven out of the 11 on the field, speak English and French, while, again very conservatively, we can say that the English have three girls fluent in French. When the English call out for the ball or to cross the field, in English, seven French players know where that ball is potentially going and can react accordingly covering angles and players. Going the other way, only three English players will understand a French player shouting out.
Most of the world can understand the directions yelled out by English-speaking teams. The other match today in the Women's World Cup, Germany versus Japan, will have far fewer athletes who know both of those languages, again a conservative estimate because I do not personally know what any of the ladies may have studied. It is far less likely that many of the Germans know Japanese or that many of the Japanese know German and therefore both teams can shout out directions, plans, and deceptions in their native languages without alerting the opposition.
English is one of the major languages of business, this is true, but in sports I believe English has become a major hindrance in strategic planning in international games. Clearly it is not such a problem that English-speaking teams cannot win in international competition; check Olympic medal totals, even the group action last week with the US women winning two of three games, however, it does make for hidden strategy to require something extra from the coaches and players.
The next time you watch international sports listen to the communication. For those of us not watching the Women's World Cup, there are plenty of other opportunities to watch international competition. Soccer, though, has field microphones that allow spectators on television and in person alike to listen to players and officials as the game goes on, to a point. English and French are flying across the screen and through my ears as I write this. International sport is a unique experience, whether in person or on television, and the languages involved are very interesting to listen to as well as to watch play out in the on field strategies.