If it were up to Willem Vissers, Ajax coach Míchel Sánchez would hold his press conferences in Spanish from now on, with an interpreter beside him. The De Volkskrant journalist said as much on Monday evening on Voetbalpraat on ESPN.
Recently, Míchel has often given his press conferences in English. Vissers says he has "a great deal of difficulty with that". "The man can't do anything about it. He comes from Spain and hardly speaks any English. It has got better than it was a month ago, though."
"But if I sit there for a quarter of an hour, I go mad. I also deliberately stopped asking questions, because I sort of freeze up. I simply can't listen to it. If you don't speak English, you have to put an interpreter there."
"What company does that, then? You're a big multinational and you bring in someone who doesn't speak the language at all. Also the language that the other people in the country, English, do speak. And then you try to explain things there, what journalists are asking."
"I couldn't make head nor tail of those answers. The players also say they understand it all, but it turns out they don't. Because they no longer know what they have to do. I do think he is a good coach, but I do find it very laboured," the journalist said.
Perez agrees. "This is just toe-curling to sit and watch. I was watching it yesterday as well," the analyst said.
He added: "And another thing: if you haven't mastered the language, you can't really explain properly to journalists what you truly mean. So do it in your mother tongue, because then you can really get to the heart of it. This is just not nice to watch. Then you're better off not holding the press conferences," Perez concluded.