Japan's Honda arrives in Mexico, speaking Spanish

Give the guy credit, like Nakada did when he went to Italy, he learned Italian. If Honda wants to play in Mexico it's worth his while to learn Spanish to communicate with his teammates and fans.

Just wish the press would stop making it seem like Honda is something special because he worked hard to learn Spanish. Anyone can learn a foreign language if they work at it and not treat it like it's some hobby to be studied an hour or two a week!

Good player. Good pro. Invests time and money to help the underprivileged.

Best of luck to him.

All of a sudden everybody in J-land will become interested in mexican soccer.

and we will be told the mexican league is on par with the major European leagues

Hope Pachuca are for the on-field performance and not the merchandise sales.

If Hola! is pronounced Ola! ... do they call him Onda, I wonder?

Let me guess - they are in line to become Central/North American champions and will compete in Club World Cup in Japan?

On the language side though, good effort considering he has not been based in a Spanish-speaking country before. He probably speaks Italian by now but they are not that similar so I give him credit for that.

@nanda

I'm sure they do. And it means "wave" in Spanish....

Good luck to him. Glad he made the effort to communicate in Spanish. And given he has 'matured' in age since complaining constantly about how his (Japanese) teammates get Europe but he does not, when he was in Russia, methinks he'll give this a more legitimate shot and complain less.