Every time Lionel Messi has spoke English: From ‘deep regrets’ to rare adverts… | OneFootball

Lionel Messi might be the most famous person not to speak English in the history of the English-speaking world.

The Inter Miami superstar has recently revealed that he regrets not taking the opportunity to learn the language growing up. But he has been learning English in recent years, and he can understand it, much as you wouldn’t know it from his public and media appearances.

We’ve put together a potted history of Messi’s English, the few times he’s been captured speaking it on camera, and when he started learning.

Reluctance to speak English on camera

Presumably paid lucratively by PepsiCo for advertising Lays, Messi hasn’t had any issue with fronting major Western brands.

But speaking English – even an awkward phonetic reading from an autocue – has usually tended to be a boundary he’s been unwilling to cross. You’ll notice a conspicuous lack of Messi saying anything when he appears in adverts.

The same awkward issue has occasionally reared its head when Messi has made public appearances.

“Can you say ‘I love Egypt’?” a presenter asked at a fundraising event back in 2018. A befuddled Messi asked “What?” in Spanish, before adhering to the request but only in his native tongue.

Messi understands English

“I understand everything, or almost everything in English,” Messi revealed in an appearance on his nephew’s YouTube channel Abitare.

“But out of embarrassment I don’t speak – but I think I can actually.”

When did Messi start learning English?

In the summer of 2021, when Messi joined PSG, he revealed to Spanish journalist Guillem Balague that he’d been learning English.

“I’ve been learning English for a year and a half,” he said.

“I understand it but I don’t speak it.”

That means that Messi started learning English back in early 2020. Hey, we all picked up new hobbies in lockdown, didn’t we?

The fact that the Argentinian took the time to learn English at that point in his career certainly lends credence to the theory that he considered going to the Premier League.

There are widespread reports that Manchester City nearly signed Messi around the time of the ‘burofax’ saga, when his time at Barcelona was finally coming an end. What might’ve been, eh?

It’s almost too weird to imagine the idea of Messi giving an awkward post-match interview to Patrick Davison after featuring in Sky Sports’ prime Super Sunday slot.

Jamie Carragher DM

Back when Messi was at PSG, Jamie Carragher stated it was a mistake for the perennial Ligue 1 champions to sign the Argentinian and that they’d never win the Champions League with him playing alongside Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.

Messi responded by sliding into Carragher’s DMs on Instagram. But he sent the message in his native Spanish, rather than English, with the former Liverpool defender needing to use Google Translate to get his head around the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner’s opinion.

Carra didn’t reveal the full message, but did say that Messi called him a ‘donkey’ (“burro” in Spanish) – evidently one of his favourite insults, given it’s the same word he used to James Milner in a Champions League match, unaware that the veteran utility man is fluent in Spanish.

CBS Sports later reached out to set up an interview after Messi’s move to Inter Miami, but the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner holds a grudge.

“Lionel Messi will not be doing any television show that Jamie Carragher is a part of,” was the response from Messi’s camp.

“Very nice of you”

Eagle-eyed fans believe Messi’s first English words caught on camera were in an appearance alongside magician Julius Dean, who boasts millions of followers on Instagram and YouTube.

…We’re not quite so convinced.

This one’s inconclusive to our ears.

American team-mates

“Messi doesn’t really ever speak to me much and if he did, then it was a little bit in Spanish always,” United States international Julian Gressel said of playing alongside Messi at Inter Miami.

“I understand most of it in Spanish. He came over to me and said something in English.

“That was the first time he’d spoken to me in English, during the game. He was covering his mouth like he always does. Then after – this is the funny part about it – he goes, ‘English pretty good, no?’”

Bad Boys advert

Evidence of Messi becoming a bit more comfortable with English following his move to America by him breaking the habit of a lifetime and agreeing to speak English alongside Will Smith in a promo for Bad Boys 4.

It’s only two words, but it’s something. Baby steps.

“No Foul?”

More evidence of Messi speaking English out in America was captured in MLS ref cam.

Messi’s wife

Antonela Roccuzzo is believed to be fluent in English and there are reports that she’s been helping her husband learn English since their move to the United States in 2023.

While Messi has famously been more reticent to speak English on camera, Roccuzzo spoke in English in an advert for Guerlain hair products.

A prominent presence on social media with over 40 million Instagram followers, the 38-year-old influencer and entrepreneur tends to speak in her native tongue. But she developed her English during a Bachelor’s degree at the Centro Educativo Latinoamericano in her hometown of Rosario.

Regrets

“I regret many things,” Messi said during a recent appearance on Mexican podcast Miro de Atras

“To not have learned English as a boy. I had the time to have at least studied English and I didn’t do it. I deeply regret it.

“I experienced situations where I was with incredible and spectacular personalities to be able to talk and have a chat and you feel half ignorant.

“I always thought: ‘What an idiot, how I wasted my time.’

“When you’re young, you don’t realise it. Today, that’s what I tell my children: [the importance of] having a good education, to study and be prepared.

“I always tell my children to take advantage of it. They have a different situation to the one I had although I never lacked anything…”