Opinion | Not lost in translation: how a footballer’s way with words caught China offside

The Ken(n)edys clearly have a way with words. More than 50 years after John Fitzgerald possibly likened himself to a doughnut in his ‘Ich Bin ein Berliner’ speech, young Chelsea player Robert Kenedy Nunes Nascimento has recently been similarly challenging the world’s linguistic communities.

However, while J.F.K.’s phraseology was subsequently proven grammatically sound and therefore not a reference to fried confectionary, Brazilian Kenedy’s social media postings have failed to withstand the scrutiny of cyberspace watchers, particularly in China.

Over the summer, Premier League club Chelsea played in Beijing as part of its pre-season preparations. During the tour, Kenedy took to Instagram to post some comments about his hosts. One was a photograph of a sleeping security guard accompanied by the statement ‘Acorda china Vacilao’. The second was a selfie, linked to which he wrote ‘Porra China’.

The precise translations of both have now been debated for several weeks, although each interpretation has generally confirmed that the Brazilian insulted his hosts. The guard was told by the Brazilian to ‘wake-up, Chinese fool’. The selfie post induced more detailed analyses, but the consensus seemed to be that it meant ‘f***-you, China’.