Sunderland boss Paolo Di Canio hasn’t disappointed this season so far - at least, not in press conferences.
Despite having a large say in bringing in the 13 players the Black Cats signed this offseason, he’s apparently furious that a number of them can’t speak the languague he would like them to.
‘It’s driving me crazy” said the Italian. “At the moment we are a group of players who can only gel together more, speak more English, communicate more, then we are going to be OK. What we miss now is only to avoid a few mistakes that most of the time came from not communicating.”
You’d have thought if he wanted players who could speak English, he would have signed players who...you know...could speak English. Apparently the language barrier is becoming a major issue in training and during matches.
“That was the problem that we knew before with so many foreigners can be a problem. They can be shy, not sure about talking English because their pronunciation the others might make fun of. We need to improve on this because this can be the biggest problem.”
So now Di Canio is looking for English-speaking players, such as U.S. striker Jozy Altidore, to step up and engage those who don’t know the language in conversation and make sure they’re not ostracized from the social scene between players.
“Who’s got the character to get close to the others? To explain, to help us to do this. On the field, in training sessions, in the shower, in the bed, wherever they want. This can be the worst problem.”
In the bed? Didn’t realize the team was that close.
In all, this summer Di Canio signed 4 Italian, 3 French, 1 Czech, 1 Greek, and 1 Korean player(s).