Destiny Udogie

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Bill Madrid said:
Not exactly a foreign language, his parents are Nigerian so he almost certainly grew up speaking English at home.

No arguments about how articulate he is and how mature he seems mind.
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I work with Nigerians, they are fanatical football fans and English definitely their first language but difficult to understand when they are talking to each other!!
 
Wellsey said:
I work with Nigerians, they are fanatical football fans and English definitely their first language but difficult to understand when they are talking to each other!!
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I had a similar experience many years ago in Gambia. The only other guests in the small hotel we had just checked into were two Nigerian blokes, travelling salesmen. We joined them and the hotel owner for a couple of beers and were all soon getting on fine.

So there were bits in the conversation when the two Nigerians would say something to each other, then the Gambian chap would add something and soon they were chatting away in something that was about 20% English but with loads of strange words and a structure that didn't make much sense to us. I mean you could tell they were talking about football say but I couldn't have told you what their individual opinions were.

Pretty soon they realised we were left out of the chitchat, they reverted to standard English and apologised - no need we said, it was fascinating. The Nigerians explained they had grown up in two neighbouring villages about two miles apart, but their respective mother tongues were mutually unintelligible, completely so. This was pretty common they said, there are many hundreds of languages in the country and most cannot be understood by a speaker of another, however close they live together.

So the solution was that everyone spoke pidgin English, which is loosely based on the standard form but with a crazy mix of local words and a simplified, less grammatical structure that made communication a lot easier (but is incredibly hard for non-West Africans to follow). The Gambian bloke said that they had a similar thing there as well and the beauty was that although some of the vocab was different, the structure meant he could jump in and they'd all be chatting away in no time.

All three spoke perfect standard English but among themselves they preferred the more relaxed, more expressive and African pidgin. I guess it's perfectly possible that Destiny grew up in such an environment, his parents may well have spoke mutually unintelligible tongues and had met and lived together with pidgin as their go-to language, speaking standard English if and when required, with their children growing up in this crazy but wonderful mix of mum's language, dad's language, pidgin, standard English and Italian.
 
Bill Madrid said:
I had a similar experience many years ago in Gambia. The only other guests in the small hotel we had just checked into were two Nigerian blokes, travelling salesmen. We joined them and the hotel owner for a couple of beers and were all soon getting on fine.

So there were bits in the conversation when the two Nigerians would say something to each other, then the Gambian chap would add something and soon they were chatting away in something that was about 20% English but with loads of strange words and a structure that didn't make much sense to us. I mean you could tell they were talking about football say but I couldn't have told you what their individual opinions were.

Pretty soon they realised we were left out of the chitchat, they reverted to standard English and apologised - no need we said, it was fascinating. The Nigerians explained they had grown up in two neighbouring villages about two miles apart, but their respective mother tongues were mutually unintelligible, completely so. This was pretty common they said, there are many hundreds of languages in the country and most cannot be understood by a speaker of another, however close they live together.

So the solution was that everyone spoke pidgin English, which is loosely based on the standard form but with a crazy mix of local words and a simplified, less grammatical structure that made communication a lot easier (but is incredibly hard for non-West Africans to follow). The Gambian bloke said that they had a similar thing there as well and the beauty was that although some of the vocab was different, the structure meant he could jump in and they'd all be chatting away in no time.

All three spoke perfect standard English but among themselves they preferred the more relaxed, more expressive and African pidgin. I guess it's perfectly possible that Destiny grew up in such an environment, his parents may well have spoke mutually unintelligible tongues and had met and lived together with pidgin as their go-to language, speaking standard English if and when required, with their children growing up in this crazy but wonderful mix of mum's language, dad's language, pidgin, standard English and Italian.
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Spot on and the two I work with are a chav and a gooner!!
They understood me when I wore a Spurs shirt after our win over Woolwich .
Their knowledge of all European league and players is incredible.
 
Fireweed said:
I wonder if this "Buy-loan back" (except easing the transfer talks with the selling club and getting a good loan to boot) is a way to diminish the pressure on young players.

Pape Matar Sarr joined with no fanfare at all this summer, because most people have kind of forgotten him to be honest, which means there's no pressure to play him because he's new and shiny, and there's no pressure for him to perform either.
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I think the main draw of it is that
1) It guarantees a fee to the selling club and they don’t have to worry about a young player running down the contract/getting injured
2) they get to keep the player another year so don’t feel the loss as quickly and can line up replacements
3) For the buying club, they get to develop the player on loan but at somewhere where they are already established. the player doesn’t have to travel to a new country and learn a new squad and manager. The player gets to remain comfortable and set up for success.
4) The buying club also probably pays a smaller fee than they would a year later.
 
He's only young etc but definitely needs to work on he's defensive work rate that no doubt Conte will.
 
Played incredibly well and deservedly got a goal for his efforts.



On a sidenote, the refs in Italy are just as bad as in England.
 
I've skim watched 50 minutes of the Monza/Udinese game (just paying attention to his bits).

He's tenacious enough when he challenges, and a strong lad, but two or three times he wasn't switched on to his man running past him on breaks, one of the times his marker scored from it, but was luckily flagged offside. He's not slow, but he didn't have that lightning burst to compensate when he did get caught.

On the ball looks stronger than Sessegnon, much more pressure resistant, he's not easily shrugged off it, looks decent technically.

Played a nice one/two and stuck his chance away well (although his finish might have been helped by a slip)
 
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