This is how Inter Miami players and coaches are bridging their language gap in camp
First things first. Julian Carranza, Inter Miami’s 19-year-old Argentine forward, is determined to adapt to American culture as he embarks on his career with the Major League Soccer expansion franchise, so for now, he would prefer his first name be pronounced “Julian” with an English J rather than “Hulian”.
Not that he isn’t extremely proud of his Latin American heritage, but while he is in the United States, he is dying to learn English and pronounce words the American way so he can better communicate with English-speaking teammates, fans and reporters.
From the moment he signed with the team last summer, he has been practicing English with his bilingual girlfriend, Valentina, a native of Argentina who spent much of her childhood in Miami and has relatives in Hialeah.
During the team’s six-week preseason training camp, Carranza is rooming with goalkeeper John McCarthy, a Philadelphia native. Carranza is making it a point to work on his English with McCarthy.
More than half of Inter Miami’s players, and most of the coaching staff, is of Hispanic heritage. Head coach Diego Alonso is from Uruguay, coached in Mexico and speaks very little English. The players and coaches are making efforts to become proficient in the other language.
In fact, the club is hiring an English teacher and Spanish teacher to help bridge the language gap. Also, Spanish-speaking players are choosing to sit next to English speakers during meals and on the bus, and vice versa. Practices are conducted in both languages, with English-speaking assistants translating when necessary.
Even the team’s social media accounts are bilingual. And a good number of the supporters’ groups fan chants are in Spanish. MLS has long wanted a Miami team to be the gateway to Latin America.
Some of the players — such as MLS veterans Luis Robles and A.J. DeLaGarza — have Hispanic roots, but speak very limited Spanish. Both said they intend to brush up on Spanish so they can have a bigger impact as locker room leaders.
“I look like I should speak Spanish, but I don’t,” said DeLaGarza, whose father is Mexican-Guamanian and mother is Native American. Robles speaks some, and sends texts in Spanish, but he is working on speaking more proficiently.
Despite the language barrier, players said they have already started to gel after just four days of training camp. The fact that it’s an expansion team, and everyone is new, makes it easier.
“The coaching staff is doing all it can to make sure we get to know each other, whether it’s changing seats at meals, talking to each other, joking around before and after training,” said defender Ben Sweat, a Palm Harbor native who came from New York City FC. “Everyone’s meshed together. Everyone’s new. Usually, you come to a team and maybe some guy has a seat on the bus already or a seat in the meal room, but everyone’s new here. Nobody has a set seat. Everyone’s moving around, bouncing around.”
DeLaGarza, 32, is a 12-year veteran of the league. He won three MLS Cups with the L.A. Galaxy from 2009 to 2016, including four seasons as a teammate of Inter Miami co-owner David Beckham. He then spent three years with the Houston Dynamo. Joining an expansion team is a completely different experience.
“I’m not just the new guy, everyone’s a new guy,” he said. “We all have to get to know each other rather quickly. It’s a unique situation.”
The team is already beginning to bond, DeLaGarza said. It helps that the team is staying at a hotel for extended periods while training camp moves around Florida from Miami Shores to Port Saint Lucie to Bradenton to Fort Lauderdale to St. Petersburg.
“I already see guys hanging out with one another, going out to eat, go grab coffee, play video games together,” DeLaGarza said. “We’re all in a hotel, so it’s pretty tight quarters, you get to know each other pretty quick, all the meals are together so you have conversations and that’s where it has to start in preseason, when we’re all together in the hotel because when we’re back in our daily lives, we’ll go home after training and probably won’t speak to teammates until the next morning.”
Preseason training continues Friday at Barry University, and then the team moves to Port Saint Lucie for a week and Bradenton for another week before returning to Fort Lauderdale from Feb. 7 to 14. The first open-to-the-public preseason game is Feb. 15 at 4 p.m. in St. Petersburg against the Philadelphia Union. Admission is free.