PSG’s young starlet Xavi Simons is one of an increasing number of players who are hyped up way ahead of schedule.
By the age of 14, Simons already had more than one million Instagram followers and his own dedicated social media team to handle his online activity.
The Dutchman went on to make headlines by turning down a €100k-a-season deal to stay at Barcelona. Represented by Mino Raiola, Simons decided to continue his development in Paris.
He was just 16 at the time. Yet Simons was no stranger to the limelight.
The midfielder joined Barcelona’s La Masia academy at the age of nine and YouTube videos of his skills quickly racked up millions of views.
Thanks to the internet, Simons was already a star before he’d achieved anything of note in the game.
Fast forward to 2022 and the youngster, who turns 19 in March, is getting more and more involved in PSG’s first team.
And his Instagram following? That’s up to 3.9 million followers at the time of writing.
Simons can speak multiple languages
Born in Amsterdam and having played in Spain and France, Simons has developed the ability to speak multiple languages and a video of him speaking four different ones has gone viral on YouTube.
In the short video, Simons is shown in four different settings speaking French, Spanish, Dutch and English.
It’s really impressive to see. Despite only being in Paris for a brief period, he’s already comfortable speaking French and while not entirely fluent, he’s clearly spent time getting to grips with English too.
Fans impressed by multi-lingual Simons
Viewers were very impressed with the clip.
One comment read: “I was really impressed by his French, as a French person I can completely understand him without any subtitles or whatever, it's definitely impressive.”
Another viewer wrote: “He speaks them all very well too! I am no language expert but he sounds almost fluent in every language! Impressive!”
A third added: “This is so impressive, how does he even have the accents and pronunciation at 18?”
“As a French native speaker, his French is quite stunning,” read another comment.
Another viewer noted how Simons’ has already grasped the French language better than some of his PSG teammates.
“He speaks better French than Di Maria, Neymar and even Verratti,” the comment read.
Meanwhile, a fan was left rather jealous by Simons’ talent.
“Damn I can barely even speak one language and he can speak four,” they wrote.
He's a talent on and off the pitch, for sure.