I did interview Alvaro Pires today.
The first thing I asked him, speaking Portuguese, was: "Do you speak Spanish?"
A lot of Brazilian players learn Spanish easily - that's the way I always talked with Marcelo Saragosa, for example.
Alvaro answered in Portuguese, "I don't speak Spanish."
"My Portuguese is very bad," I told him (still speaking Portuguese) He just grinned.
"OK," I finally said. "You speak Portuguese, and I'll speak Spanish?" He nodded.
So that's how we got through the interview. Towards the end, I tried to get Pires to 'fess up to what he had said to Saragosa and Rocha during the fracas with Becks in Dallas. Pires was holding both of his countrymen off at one point. When reporters asked about what happened, Dallas goalkeeper Dario Sala never explained what words were exchanged, so I was hoping Pires could enlighten me.
Maybe the language gap helped him dodge the question.
"As the game was almost over in Dallas, there was a disagreement with Beckham and two Brazilians on the Dallas team. On TV, I saw you talking with Saragosa - what did you say to him, and what did he say to you?" I asked.
"Oh, yes, Saragosa is also Brazilian and we spoke together," answered Pires.
"What did he say?"
"Oh, I don't really remember," Pires said. Then he smiled again.
4 comments:
Sorry for the off topic comment, what I want to know what you guys think of this (IMO) travesty. The ownership in Seattle has narrowed the names to 3 and will have fan votes online starting next Thursday.
http://www.mlsinseattle.com/article.aspx?id=1092
As the press release says, one of the names will not be Sounders. I think its horrible that they don't even give that name a chance considering the history behind it.
MLS Rumors has discovered that three names have been trademarked by MLS.
Seattle FC
Seattle Republic
Seattle Alliance
http://mlsrumors.blogspot.com/2008/03/expansion-seattle-name-will-be-either.html
I would really like to see the Seattle Sounders. Not sure how you guys feel about it, but if you think Sounders should at least be a possiblity, perhaps you could comment on it on the blog. Sorry for the long post.
I think the logic behind this is that they haven't decided whether or not to fold the Sounders as a USL team. I was telling someone from Canada that a successful USL team is actually a detriment to MLS expansion in the same area. The MLS team doesn't want to share the soccer crowd or get blamed for wiping out the USL team's crowd. Plus, they want to differentiate the product. Let's say you don't know Seattle has a new MLS team, because all you hear is the same name, Sounders, that you associate with the USL squad.
We have very few soccer traditions in the United States / Canada. One of the traditions are the team names that have managed to survive to this day, such as the San Jose Earthquakes, Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, and Vancouver Whitecaps.
I seriously doubt any USL will survive or attempt to continue in the same location after an MLS expansion. The USL Sounders play at Qwest Field, so we at least know that if they survive, it will be at a different location. There has been talk of the Portland Timbers trying to get into MLS. That would be the same organization, in a sense, "promoted" to MLS. Not a new team in Portland to compete with the USL team.
Even ignoring all that, the only decent name on that list is Seattle FC.
Seattle Republic? Might work for Texas or California, but Washington was never a republic.
Seattle Alliance? I don't even know how they came up with that one.
A variation on United, I'd guess.
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