Premier Vocabulary is a mini-podcast for you to learn football English one word at a time. We have three different levels for you: easy, medium and hard.

This episode is easy so we’re looking at common football words and phrases. Things you use and need to know to play the game.

Summary

Learn more football vocabulary with Premier Skills English. Each lesson in our Premier Vocabulary section looks at one football word or phrase. This lesson looks at the word equaliser.

You can find more Premier Vocabulary on the side of this page.

Transcript

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich and welcome to Premier Skills English - Premier Vocabulary.

Jack: Hi there! I’m Jack. We’re here to help you with your football English. Premier Vocabulary is a mini-podcast for you to learn football English one word at a time.

Rich: We have three different levels for you: easy, medium and hard.

Jack: This episode is easy so we’re looking at common football words and phrases. Things you use and need to know to play the game.

...

Rich: The phrase we are looking at in this episode is equaliser.

Jack: An equaliser is a goal that is scored to make the scores between the two teams the same or equal.

Rich: If a team are losing 1-0 and then they score to make it 1-1 that goal is called the equaliser.

Jack: The team have equalised.

Rich: So, it can be a verb and a noun. Equaliser is the noun and equalise is the verb.

Jack: Have a listen to this short dialogue to help you understand this a little more.

...

Rich: Come on! We’ve got to start playing better. They’re going to equalise - I can feel it.

Jack: There’s only a few minutes left. I think we’re going to do it. Come on you Reds!

Rich: Here we go. They’ve got a corner. No! 1-1! That’s the equaliser.

Jack: Hold on a minute. Look at the referee. It’s been disallowed. Their equaliser is not going to count.

Rich: And there’s the final whistle. Get in!

...

Jack: Let’s look at the word equaliser in a bit more detail.

Rich: There are some very strong collocations with the word equaliser that you hear a lot when we talk about football.

Jack: Remember that a collocation is two or more words that are used next to each other a lot.

Rich: The most common collocations with equaliser are those connected to time because we often talk about equalisers near the end of a match.

Jack: I suppose when they happen near the end of a match it’s much more exciting. OK, so some common collocations connected to time include a last-minute equaliser, a late equaliser, a 90th or 89th-minute equaliser, an injury-time equaliser or a last-gasp equaliser

Rich: We also often talk about whether the team deserved the equaliser or not. We deserve something when we have done well or worked hard for a result.

Jack: So if a team has played well and equalise in the last minute we often hear the collocation a deserved equaliser.

Rich: But if the team haven’t been so good and get lucky near the end of a game we often hear the collocation an undeserved equaliser.

...

Jack: One final important thing to remember is the spelling. In British English, we use an ‘s’ when we say equalise or equaliser.

Rich: In American English we use a ‘z’ when we say equalize or equalizer.

Jack: But the pronunciation is the same and we use a /z/ sound. This can be a difficult sound for some.

Rich: /zzzzzz/ cars, balls, zebra, puzzle, equalise, equaliser.

Final whistle

Jack: There is the final whistle!

Rich: We’ll be back soon with more Premier Vocabulary from Premier Skills English.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football.

Discuss

How do fans feel when their team score a last-minute equaliser?