To celebrate Europe’s festival of football, Uefa.com put this together help fans get to grips with the most difficult player names at UEFA Euro 2020.
To celebrate Europe’s festival of football, Uefa.com put this together help fans get to grips with the most difficult player names at UEFA Euro 2020.
AUSTRIA
Basic German-language rules apply – note that an umlauted ‘ä’, ‘ö’ or ‘ü’ sounds something similar to ‘ae’, ‘oe’, ‘ue’ in English.
Stefan Lainer – Liner
Philipp Lienhart – Leen-hart
Alessandro Schöpf – Sherpf
Karim Onisiwo – Onni-see-vo
Sasa Kalajdzic – Sasha Kal-ide-jitch
BELGIUM
Some names are pronounced the Flemish way, and some the French way.
Tee-bo Cor-twa
Toby Alderweireld – Al-der-way-reld
Michy Batshuayi – Bat-shoe-a-yi
Timothy Castagne – Cast-an-yer
Thibaut Courtois – Tee-bo Cor-twa
Thomas Meunier – Muh-nee-ay
Simon Mignolet – Min-yo-let
Thomas Vermaelen – Ver-mah-len
CROATIA
Basic rules: ‘š’ is a ‘sh’, ‘c’ and ‘c’ are a bit like an English ‘ch’, and ‘j’ approximates to an English ‘y’.
Milan Badelj – Bad-el-ee
Luka Ivanušec – Eevan-oo-shets
Mislav Oršic – Orsh-itch
Šime Vrsaljko – Shi-may Ver-sal-ee-ko
CZECH REPUBLIC
Accents on vowels indicate where the pronunciation should be stressed (so ‘Tomáš’ is more like ‘Tom-aash’ for English speakers). An ‘š’ is a ‘sh’, a ‘c’ is a ‘ch’, but ‘c’ is more like a ‘ts’. And ‘r’ is a bit like ‘rj’ in English.
Jan Boril – Yan Borjil
Ondrej Celustka – Ondjay Chell-oost-ka
Adam Hložek – H-lozhek
Tomáš Holeš – Hollesh
Pavel Kaderábek – Kadder-jah-beck
Aleš Mateju – Alesh Mattay-oo
Jirí Pavlenka – Yeer-zhee
Jakub Pešek – Pesheck
Petr Ševcík – Shev-cheek
Tomáš Vaclík – Vatz-leek
DENMARK
That ‘æ’ character is widely misunderstood among English speakers, while a ‘g’ tends to be much softer than it looks.
Pierre-Emile Hoy-byer
Simon Kjær – Care
Pierre-Emile Højbjerg – Hoy-byer
Jonas Lössl – Yo-nass Lussel
Joakim Mæhle – May-leh
Frederik Rønnow – Rern-oh
ENGLAND
All pretty simple.
FINLAND
Vowels and accents can make a language more treacherous than it first appears (a Finnish ‘ä’ sounds much like the English ‘a’ in ‘hat’).
Nikolai Alho – Arl-hoh
Paulus Arajuuri – Ara-yoo-ree
Jasin Assehnoun – Asser-known
Nicholas Hämäläinen – Hama-lay-nen
Lukas Hradecky – Lukash Radetski
Juhani Ojala – O-yalla
Teemu Pukki – Pooky
Sauli Väisänen – Vay-san-en
FRANCE
The vowels often confound English speakers. So do the consonants.
On-twan Gree-ez-man
Lucas Digne – Loo-cah Dee-nyuh
Olivier Giroud – Ol-iv-ee-eh Ji-roo
Antoine Griezmann – On-twan Gree-ez-man
N’Golo Kanté – N-go-lo Kon-tay
Clément Lenglet – Long-lay
Steve Mandanda – Stev Mon-don-dah
Mike Meignan – Mane-yoh
Marcus Thuram – Too-ram
GERMANY
An umlaut on ‘ä’, ‘ö’ or ‘ü’ is comparable to ‘ae’, ‘oe’, ‘ue’ in English. Note: Joshua Kimmich – ‘ich’ as in “ich bin ein Berliner” rather than Baby You’re A Rich Man.
Manuel Neuer – Noy-ah
Ilkay Gündogan – Eel-kay Goon-doe-wan
Emre Can – Jan
Joshua Kimmich – Kim-ikh
HUNGARY
One of the few European languages that do not belong to the Indo-European group, Hungarian is not as percussive-sounding as it looks.
Tamás Cseri – Tom-ash Cherry
Dénes Dibusz – Day-nesh Di-boos
Péter Gulácsi – Pay-ter Goo-lat-chi
Ákos Kecskés – Ah-kosh Ketch-kay-sh
Gergo Lovrencsics – Ger-gur Lov-ren-chitch
Ádám Nagy – Nah-dge
Szabolcs Schön – Saw-bolch Shern
Attila Szalai – Saw-law-ee
ITALY
The commonly-made mistake is to pronounce a ‘ch’ like an English ‘ch’ – it is more like a ‘k’. Lorenzo Insigne is a tough one to get spot on – linguists may note that his ‘gn’ works like a Spanish ‘ñ’.
Federico Bernardeschi – Ber-nar-desk-ee
Giorgio Chiellini – Jor-joe Key-eh-lean-ee
Federico Chiesa – Kee-ay-sah
Alessio Cragno – Cran-yo
Lorenzo Insigne – In-sin-yuh
NETHERLANDS
The gg sound is like the Scottish ‘loch’. The ‘ij’ doesn’t have a direct English equivalent, but is softer than the ‘i’ sound in ‘fine’ (and more like the Scottish ‘aye’, or ‘why’). The ‘ou’ is more pronounced than the English ‘out’ – it’s like ‘ah-ou’ run together; so think of the ‘ow’ when you bang your elbow on a doorframe.
Georginio Why-naldum
Steven Bergwijn – Stay-ven Berugg-why-n
Matthijs de Ligt – Mat-ice Dull-icht
Marten de Roon – Der-own
Stefan de Vrij – Stay-fon Duh-fray
Quincy Promes – Pro-mess
Wout Weghorst – Vowt Vegg-horst
Georginio Wijnaldum – Why-naldum
Owen Wijndal – Whyne-dal
NORTH MACEDONIA
North Macedonian names are transliterated from the Cyrillic alphabet so the hard work should have been done for you, but there are a few hazardous ones out there.
Visar Musliu – Moos-lyoo
Vlatko Stojanovski – Stoyan-ovski
Aleksandar Trajkovski – Try-kovski
Ivan Trickovski – Tritch-kovski?
POLAND
Polish is a much softer-sounding language than all the ‘k’s and ‘z’s would suggest. A ‘L’ or ‘l’ is rather like an English ‘w’, while the subscript accent on an ‘e’ or an ‘a’ subtly adds an ‘n’ to the vowel. The Polish ‘ch’ is a ‘kh’ sound, like in Kazakhstan.
Robert Lev-and-ov-ski
Bartosz Bereszynski – Berresh-in-skee
Pawel Dawidowicz – Dav-id-ov-itch
Lukasz Fabianski – Woo-cash Fab-yan-ski
Kamil Józwiak – Yoz-vee-ak
Tomasz Kedziora – Kend-zyor-a
Dawid Kownacki – Kov-nats-kee
Kacper Kozlowski – Kos-lov-skee
Robert Lewandowski – Lev-and-ov-ski
Kamil Piatkowski – Pyont-kov-skee
Przemyslaw Placheta – Pwa-khetta
Tymoteusz Puchacz – Pook-atch
Jakub Swierczok – Shfair-chock
Wojciech Szczesny – Voy-chekh Sh-chen-sni
PORTUGAL
Contrary to what most English speakers imagine, Portuguese sounds very different to Spanish. The ‘r’ at the start of Rui or Renato is a little bit like a rolled ‘r’ in French. The second vowels in ‘Lopes’ and ‘Neves’ get squashed down into a ‘sh’ – e.g. Lopsh, Nevsh.
Anthony Lopes – Lopsh
Bruno Fernandes – Fur-nandsh
Diogo Jota – Dee-ohg Zhotta
Gonçalo Guedes – Gon-sarlo Gair-diss
Raphael Guerreiro – Ge-ray-ro
João Félix – Joo-wow Fay-lix
João Moutinho – Joo-wow Mo-teen-oo
João Palhinha – Joo-wow Pal-een-a
Pedro Gonçalves – Gon-salvsh
Pepe – Pep (not ‘Pep-eh’)
Rúben Neves – Nevsh
RUSSIA
Vowel sounds and the way they are stressed present the biggest challenges for English speakers, with common first names often not sounding exactly like their transcribed equivalents – hence Igor = Igar, Roman = Raman, Denis = Dinis, Oleg = Aleg. Surnames ending in ‘ov’ sound like ‘off’.
Igor Diveev – Div-ay-ev
Artem Dzyuba – Dzyoo-ba
Aleksei Ionov – Ee-o-noff
Andrei Semenov – Se-myo-noff
SCOTLAND
Most native English speakers will be on safe ground.
Jon McLaughlin – Mag-loch-lin
Kieran Tierney – Teer-knee
SLOVAKIA
Rules similar to Czech: an ‘š’ is a ‘sh’, a ‘c’ is a ‘ch’, but a ‘c’ is more like a ‘ts’. Meanwhile, ‘D’ – with its superscript accent – sounds something like the ‘dg’ in ‘hedge’.
Michal Duriš – Djoo-rish
Marek Hamšík – Ham-sheek
Patrik Hrošovský – Hroshov-skee
Tomáš Hubocan – Hoo-bo-chan
Dušan Kuciak – Koo-tsee-ack
Juraj Kucka – Koots-ka
Milan Škriniar – Shkrin-ee-ar
Dávid Strelec – Strell-ets
SPAIN
Getting it right is tough for the uninitiated, but the following pronunciations may get you a bit closer. César Azpilicueta’s Chelsea team-mates famously nicknamed him ‘Dave’ to avoid the difficulty of saying his surname.
César Azpilicueta – Ath-pili-coo-et-a
Sergio Busquets – Boo-skets
David de Gea – De-hay-eh
Diego and Marcos Llorente – Lorentay
SWEDEN
That ‘g’ at the end of surnames sounds a lot like an English ‘y’; the ‘j’ also sounds like a ‘y’, while the first ‘o’ in many surnames is pronounced more akin to a ‘u’. Where there’s an ‘rs’ combo, it is an English ‘sh’.
Marcus Berg – Berry
Emil Forsberg – Fosh-berry
Sebastian Larsson – La-shon
Victor Lindelöf – Lin-de-love
Robin Olsen – Ul-sen
Mattias Svanberg – Svan-berry
SWITZERLAND
In addition to Switzerland’s mix of native languages – French, Swiss German and Italian – the prominence of players with Albanian, Kosovar and Turkish roots makes things even more exciting.
Eray Cömert – Jo-mert
Breel Embolo – Brail
Becir Omeragic – Bess-eer Omer-adjitch
Fabian Schär – Share
Xherdan Shaqiri – Jer-dan Sha-chee-ree
Granit Xhaka – Jakka
TURKEY
Umlauts do a similar job as in the Germanic languages, making an ‘s’ a little like an English ‘sh’ and a ‘c’ more like a ‘j’. The problem characters are the ‘g’ and the dotless ‘i’ – both of which are very subtle sounds.
Cha-la Ser-yoon-choo
Kerem Aktürkoglu – Actur-koch-loo
Altay Bayindir – Baynder
Ugurcan Çakir – Ooroojan Chak-r
Hakan Çalhanoglu – Chalha-no-loo
Zeki Çelik – Cheleek
Halil Ibrahim Dervisoglu – Darvish-oh-loo
Irfan Can Kahveci – Car-vay-jee
Efecan Karaca – Efferjan Karaja
Orkun Kökçü – Kerk-choo
Çaglar Söyüncü – Cha-la Ser-yoon-choo
Yusuf Yazici – Yaz-idger
UKRAINE
Transcribed – like Russian – from the Cyrillic alphabet, Ukrainian is notably easier to pronounce. Names largely sound like they look in print. The number of ‘y’s might throw some English speakers, so it’s worth noting that they can generally be treated as English ‘i’s. An ‘iy’ is approximately the same as an English ‘ee’ – hence ‘Andriy’ = ‘Und-ree’. A ‘ts’ sounds like it does in Tsunami.
Heorhii Sudakov – Georgie
Viktor Tsygankov – Tsee-gan-koff
WALES
Mostly straightforward, but just in case
…Chris Mepham – Mepp-um
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