This article accounts for a case of pragmatic borrowing in a weak or casual language contact situation where English is a foreign language for the recipient language community, Spanish. The study describes and analyzes representative and specific examples of one English pragmatic discourse phraseological marker, namely, oh wait, in a sample of spontaneous synchronic comments made by football followers in Spanish football chats. The main purpose is to gain new insights into the use and distribution of oh wait in Spanish by focusing on its spelling variations, distribution, semantic and mainly pragmatic meanings and functions. The analysis shows that chat participants consciously resort to this foreign pragmatic marker as an ironic device with multiple simultaneous functions which affect the four levels of chat conversations, namely, the interaction or conversation itself, the previous statement or utterance, the other participants or interlocutors, and the user, participant or writer him/herself. •Oh wait: a borrowed ironic pragmatic marker frequent in Spanish football chats.•How and why this English marker is incorporated into Spanish football comments.•Semantic and functional adaptability in Spanish: narrowing and broadening.•Oh wait multifunctionality operates at four different levels of discourse.•Different native and non-native (imperfect) uses of oh wait.