Following Las Palmas’ crucial 3-1 victory away at Getafe on Saturday, Oli McBurnie startled football fans by speaking in Spanish during a post-match interview. when scoring his second La Liga goal, the 28-year-old, who joined his present team last summer when Sheffield United was demoted to the Championship, addressed the reporters.
During his first 25 games for Las Palmas, McBurnie, who was born in Leeds but gained 16 matches for Scotland between 2018 and 2021, did not score a single league goal. The British player, however, has already scored two goals in his last two La Liga games after snapping his drought during a 3-1 loss to Real Sociedad on April 6.
With seven games left in the season, Las Palmas’ victory over mid-table Getafe moves them up to 18th place in the standings, one point behind 17th-place Alaves. For the Canary Islands team to stay afloat, McBurnie will need to provide more goals in the upcoming weeks.
Relegation Battle in La Liga (as of April 12)
Place
Club
played
Points
17.
Alaves
30
30
18.
The Palmas
31
29
19.
Leganes
31
28
20.
Valladolid Real
30
16
5 McBurnie Already Has Impressive Spanish
Brit has put a lot of effort into learning the language.
Regardless of the outcome, however, it is evident that McBurnie has made every effort to adjust to life in Spain. In December, McBurnie told The Guardian that he and his Las Palmas teammate Scott McKenna, a fellow Scotland international who joined the team from Nottingham Forest in 2024, “speak to everyone in Spanish.” He continued, saying: “I understand one half, Scott understands the other and we get through. I think we’re doing all right, aren’t we? We’re getting there.” Five months later, it is evident that McBurnie already has an excellent command of Spanish, as evidenced by a video that is being circulated on social media that shows the striker answering questions in what appears to be near-fluent Spanish.
On social media, football fans have since commended McBurnie for learning the language so fast. On X (formerly Twitter), someone commented, “This is brilliant, totally thrown himself into the culture and showing with a good run of fitness how good he can be.” “Very impressive that in 12 months,” said a second.
A different user commented: “Been playing in Spain since last summer and his Spanish is this good? Wow, well done Oli.” A fourth wrote: “This rocks. Good on him to learn Spanish to this level after so little time there.”
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