Don’t you love google translate? It will tackle that mass of copy in some exotic language and render it into English.

Well, sorta.

Late last night, one of our reporters spotted an item on the English-language homepage of the Dubai soccer club Al Wasl, in which it was reported that the team had fired their French coach. OK. We get that. Guy Lacombe had won only two matches out of nine. That’s a fire-able offense, in this part of the world. (Also, Lacombe tended to look a bit numb, when on the bench; as if someone had banged him on the head with a 2-by-4. He seemed dazed and confused — perhaps because he had never before coached outside of France.)

And his replacement, according to the website?

Mr. Holiday Parrott.

Well, not really.

If you did not follow the link to the website, here is the exact translation coughed up by Google translate — or a similar service.

The Board of Directors of Al Wasl Football at its last meeting on Sunday evening 17.02.2013 officially dispensed French coach Mr. services / Guy Lacombe of the training of the first team football, has advanced management Wasl Club and ball thanks to the good efforts made by the coach Alkadirlakomb During the period he took training the first team the last period, after being appointed by the management compensation to former coach Bruno Metsu, and wishes him manage link every success, also decided Directors Wasl appointed coach citizen Mr. / Holiday Parrott officially as coach of the first team football until the end of Season to receive team management tasks successor to coach Guy Lacombe. Notably that Barot coach enjoys extensive experience in the field of training in stadiums Alamartah.

It turns out, the new “coach citizen” (Emirati) is not Mr. Holiday Parrott … but a man named Eid Baroot.

This is, apparently, what happened:

The Arabic word “Eid” does, in fact, translate as “holiday”.

The Arabic name “Baroot”, however, certainly is not “parrott”. The machine seems to have grasped at a word with some similarity.

However, one of our translators, at The National, assures me that the Arabic word for “parrott” is pronounced something like “babaghaa”.

Note that the italic portion, above, get close to Baroot’s name (Barot) later in the paragraph.

Our editors on the production side were confident the new coach was not Mr. Holiday Parrott. Thank goodness.

Translation software is a wonderful thing … but it’s not quite all the way there, yet.