Much like Victor Ulloa, Dylan Nealis is finding the value of technology while secluded at home during the ongoing break in MLS operations. But while Ulloa is spending much of his time participating in online schooling, Nealis is doing some virtual learning of his own.
The rookie right back is dedicating his time to improving his Spanish. Specifically, Nealis is furthering his existing knowledge of the language through the use of an app with daily exercises designed to help build understanding at different levels. Though Nealis isn’t an expert just yet, he isn’t a beginner either.
“I took Spanish in high school so I'm pretty familiar with everything. I do understand it a lot better than I speak it,” said Nealis. “Whenever the coaching staff is speaking Spanish for drills and stuff like that I can totally understand it; just relaying the information back is kind of when I struggle a little bit.”
Nealis had already made it a goal of his to continue learning the language, but the nature of the MLS training moratorium has freed up enough time to expand and invest more time on the endeavor. For now, Nealis is focusing on what he may need to learn in order to convey his thoughts in a soccer setting.
“I feel like I’m becoming more familiar with the local language and refreshing everything I’ve forgotten from high school. It’s starting to come back to me and I think that should help a lot,” he added. “It’s going pretty well. I enjoy it.”
The Massapequa, New York native attended Georgetown University before being drafted with the third-overall pick by Inter Miami in the 2020 MLS SuperDraft. The adjustment from those environments to his new one in South Florida, though challenging, has inspired him to sharpen his Spanish in order to better communicate with teammates.
“It can definitely be difficult because you want to be able to communicate with your teammates, whether it's on the field or off the field. Off the field you can build special connections and get to know your teammates and what they've gone through to get where they are now. Even just to know more about them, to see if they're funny or not,” he said with a laugh. “Christian Makoun is pretty funny, but if you don't speak Spanish it's hard to understand the jokes. But it's been fun.”
“Me and Andrés Reyes were roommates the past two road trips. I've been teaching him English and he's been teaching me some more Spanish. It's kind of fun in that way,” he added. “I'm sure it doesn't always make total sense, but they kind of get the idea. And it’s the same with Andres, he'll say a couple of things in English that, to me, don't make total sense, but I pick up on what he’s saying and it's been kind of fun.”
Reyes isn’t the only one who has helped Nealis continue to learn Spanish as he feels the general team environment has been an asset to him. This isn’t exclusive to team training sessions, either, as the team remains in constant contact. Today, for example, there was a teamwide video call.
“I'm definitely learning by product of being around my teammates. Rodolfo [Pizarro] also speaks English pretty well, but I think Andrés and Christian are two who want to learn English, which helps me.”
“We just got off a video call this morning with everyone on the team. It's kind of a lot, you have all the coaches and about 30 guys on one call. It can be kind of hectic, but we do make it fun. Some guys will add some virtual backgrounds with each other and make it pretty funny. And we also have our team group chat. We're staying connected with each other.”
