When Lionel Messi and Inter Miami played Minnesota United in early May, it wasn’t just soccer supporters who turned out in droves to Allianz Field. More Latino reporters flocked to St. Paul to cover one of the greatest players of all time.
But the superstar Argentine midfielder only speaks Spanish and didn’t meet with reporters after United’s 4-1 win, so Loons head coach Eric Ramsay helped bridge a language gap for that community.
The second-year coach from Wales deems his Spanish speaking skills as “intermediate level” and often answers at least one question in Spanish during every press conference after home games. The volume of inquires just increased for the Messi match.
Noticias MN reporter Ricardo Manjarrez has been a regular at Loons games for years and has noticed an uptick in interest over the past two seasons.
“The Latin community is getting to know Minnesota United,” Manjarrez told the Pioneer Press. “They might have their team from Ecuador or Mexico, but now it’s also Minnesota United.”
Minnesota United head coach Eric Ramsay answers questions during a press conference after an MLS soccer match against FC Dallas in St. Paul, Minn., Saturday, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
At age 33, Ramsay is the youngest head coach in MLS. Last spring, he left an assistant role at Manchester United in the English Premier League to be a first-team head coach and he didn’t want the first crack at it to be in another British dressing room.
Part of the appeal of MLS was the chance to constantly improve his language skills, which also includes French. He enjoys the every-day challenge of speaking with the Loons’ handful of Latino players and its one Frenchman.
And his quest for fluency in multiple languages remains a reason Ramsay stays committed to the Loons for the foreseeable future, despite reported interest and connections for coaching vacancies back home at West Bromwich Albion, Southhampton and Swansea City over the past few months.
“For the British coaches, (speaking only one language) has always been seen as a barrier,” Ramsay said. “It’s never been a necessity for British people in general. … I think it’s cost British coaches in the past. I think there’s a stereotype as to who can do what and where. Your average Portuguese coach has probably got the whole continent open, much more open than British coaches are seen on that island; very few are going to go afar and succeed.”
Since arriving in Minnesota in March 2024, Ramsay hasn’t shied away from his clear, grand ambitions to progress in the profession. That remained apparent when he sat down with the Pioneer Press to talk about his multilingual background.
When talking about his improving French skills, he said: “If, for example, tomorrow, I had an offer from PSG (Paris Saint-Germain FC) to go and be their manager, I feel pretty confident (that) in a couple of months, I’ll be able to get to a really proficient level.”
Home base
Ramsay grew up in a tiny Welsh village near England, but borders were constantly being broken down. His father was a drummer in a rock band, but in his 30s, and went to college to be a language teacher.
When Ramsay was small, he spent stints living in France and Spain. “Just a bit of a gentleman introduction (to those languages) for me,” he said.
Back in Wales, his home, which also included a multilingual mother, was often filled with foreign students.
“It was like the U.N.,” Ramsay said. “We’d have loads of Asian students, my dad would welcome as many French and Spanish students because they were his languages. We always had a touch point with that type of thing.”
Ramsay’s interest in Spanish and French increased when he was a teenager, and those foreign exchanges taught him how to try to communicate without a shared fluency.
“It’s being comfortable with the discomfort, I think,” Ramsay said about learning other languages. “That’s probably the first barrier that people fail to get past. It’s not an easy thing to do. If you want to learn language well, you really have to grind at it. You have to feel quite happy to make lots of mistakes.”
Ramsay’s parents are English and moved to Wales, where they raised Eric and his brother. Eric’s wife Sioned is from an area of Wales where the Welsh language is held dear and her family are staunch speakers of it.
Now Eric and Sioned try to speak a lot of Welsh while in their home in the Twin Cities suburbs. Eric’s commitment to language studies has deepened while abroad and he wants his kids, Jac and Lille, to be bilingual and value their heritage.
“I study it much more, and then it’s easy for me to be at a level above a 3 year old and a one year old,” he joked.
‘Would be a cold relationship’
Given the high level of diversity within MLS, Zarek Valentin — a former Loons player turned assistant coach — has seen other multilingual coaches on his previous teams, including Giovanni Savarese in Portland and Tab Ramos and Paulo Nagamura in Houston.
“Tactic can get explained multiple different ways, whether it’s translating apps or whatever it might be,” Valentin said. “But (the real value) in terms of relating to (players) emotionally (is) talking through some of the tough decisions, whether they’re playing or not.”
As a head coach, Ramsay wants a distance between himself and the players, but when possible he tries to have direct conversations with them in their native tongue as he breaks news about why, for instance, they are being left out of the starting XI.
“To not blur the lines in terms of why players are being taken out, because a lot of times the players’ minds can be very creative in negative ways,” Valentin said. “So, for him to be able to have a very clear conversation, nothing’s lost and the player is fully understanding.”
But Ramsay still feels he has room to improve.
“I haven’t got the same subtlety that I can go to in English,” he said. “So, if I’m having a difficult conversation with a player, it’s not quite as easy to soften it in the way that I would if it was (U.S. midfielder Wil Trapp) I was leaving out, or whatever. So, I think that’s also opened my eyes to the fact that there’s a level (of fluency) and then there’s a real level. … If I worked in a Spanish-speaking country, I would have to really improve on just the subtleties and the softness of what I say.”
But Ramsay’s effort is there. After one match last month, injured French midfielder Owen Gene was hanging out near the dressing room when Ramsay came up to him for a hushed one-on-one conversation. Ramsay was personally checking in on a new player sidelined for six weeks.
When Ramsay speaks to the team as a whole, he does it in English, while Valentin, a Puerto Rican, will live translate into Spanish for “La Banda” — the team’s band of half-dozen Latino players. Valentin can also help on the training ground or sideline during games, especially with slang.
Ramsay said his multilingualism skills can help recruit players to the club as the two sides are working on transfers. Before coming to MNUFC last summer, Argentine midfielder Joaquin Pereyra only had Spanish-speaking coaches in his native country. While he is now trying to learn English, Ramsay’s Spanish helps Pereyra feel comfortable sharing his perspective.
“If Eric didn’t speak Spanish, it would be a cold relationship and not as close,” Pereyra said in Spanish via club translator Marleine Calderon. “Since he speaks Spanish and is approachable, we are able to have a conversation with him.”
Los Angeles Galaxy’s Emiro Garces, right, vies for the ball against Minnesota United’s Joseph Rosales, left, as Minnesota United’s head coach Eric Ramsay looks on during the first half of an MLS Semifinal Conference playoff soccer match against Minnesota United, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
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