Brazilian prodigy admits difficulty communicating with Chelsea teammates

New signing Estevao has made an impressive start at Chelsea since arriving in West London. Additionally, he has been performing well for the Brazil national team. Speaking about his current situation, Estevao admitted it feels like a "dream" and also shared some of the challenges he is facing at The Blues.

Estevao officially joined Stamford Bridge this past summer and quickly made an impression on Chelsea fans. The 18-year-old confessed he was quite surprised when coach Enzo Maresca gave him playing opportunities since the new season began. Specifically, Estevao has appeared in 9 out of 10 Chelsea matches this season and expressed his desire to improve his English to better integrate with his teammates.

Regarding the language barrier, Estevao shared: “It's not too difficult. That’s for sure. I expected it to be very challenging, but once here, it turned out to be easier than I imagined. Many words repeat often because they are related to football.

Combined with body language, it’s not too hard to fit in. But when it comes to technical matters, it’s different. As for daily life, it’s another story. I’m not completely fluent yet, but I’ve improved. I learn quickly because I listen to people all the time. Right now, besides football, learning English is the most important thing for me; it’s a global language, especially since I’m in England and playing here.”

Estevao also mentioned he faces some difficulties communicating with teammate Palmer — a native Englishman whose accent is considered “quite strong.” Estevao admitted that communicating with Cole Palmer at this stage isn’t easy: “With Palmer, we are still in the early stages of getting to know each other and sharing. It’s a bit harder because his English is British-English, while I learned American-English as it’s a bit easier. Cole Palmer’s pronunciation is also quite strong. Fortunately, I only need to say a few words for him to understand what I mean. Otherwise, I’d have to find someone to help.”

Currently, Chelsea arranges daily English lessons for Estevao with the club’s private tutor, alongside other Brazilian players like João Pedro and Andrey Santos. At the moment, Estevao is playing in friendly matches with the Brazil national team. Recently, he shone helping Brazil defeat South Korea.

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