The Indonesian language course was provided by Persib Bandung’s coaching staff. Not only Luis Milla, Manuel Perez Cascallana and Carlos Grande Rodriguez also did it. They brought in language teachers to streamline their coaching duties and further improve team performance.
Manu – Manuel Cascallana’s nickname – said it was important for him to be able to understand Indonesian. Because as an assistant coach, he will interact a lot with the players. While the majority of Persib team players do not speak English.
“As I now live in Indonesia, I need to understand the language of the players. Because most of our players don’t speak English. So I wanted to communicate with them and because of that, I learned the language (Indonesian),” Manu said in an interview.
As someone who has traveled to several countries, he claims to be fluent in several languages. Manu is of course fluent in English and Spanish. He can also speak Turkish and Chinese as he claims to have worked with people from those countries.
“Of course I can speak English and also Spanish. But I can also speak a little Turkish and Chinese because I’ve worked with people from those countries,” the 33-year-old said.
Before joining Persib, he was also the coach of ATK Mohun Bagan in India. However, Manu said he is not fluent in Indian as the club he played for was a Kolkata team. Which is a different language and tends to use Bengali.
“In India it’s a bit different because in Kolkata they speak Bengali, not Indian. So there are words that I understand but I don’t speak very well. But I like Indonesian because it doesn’t It’s not hard to learn and I’m trying to learn it,” he said.
Manu also said that Chinese is the hardest to learn. Although he has studied Indonesian so far, his comprehension process tends to be smooth. “Obviously Chinese (the most difficult). In my opinion, the (Indonesian) language is quite similar to Spanish,” he said.
