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 post.

You can find more lessons 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 word we are looking at in this episode is: post.

Jack: The word post has lots of different meanings and can be used as a verb or a noun.

Rich: But in this episode, we’re going to concentrate on how we use post in football.

Jack: This means we’re talking about the two pieces of wood or more commonly metal that are put in the ground and form part of the goal.

Rich: I remember when I was a kid we’d just use two big sticks as posts. We’d often have to look for them before we’d play.

Jack: If we couldn’t find any sticks, we’d just use jumpers for goalposts.

Rich: Highly professional. Jumpers for goalposts. Goalposts are more specific to football but we generally just use the word post.

Jack: Let’s look at some common collocations with the word post. The most common is to hit the post.

Rich: We say this when a player shoots and the ball hits the post.

Jack: There are some similar collocations here. You might hear a commentator say things like ‘off the post’, ‘against the post’ or ‘the ball came back off the post and she scored from the rebound’.

Rich: When a player shoots and misses the goal by a little the commentator might say ‘just wide of the post’ or a goalkeeper might ‘turn the ball around the post’.

Jack: The word post is used a lot when we talk about the position of the goalkeeper and where defenders stand.

Rich: I often hear the phrase that a goalkeeper should never be beaten at the near post.

Jack: The near post is the post that the goalkeeper should be closest to when an attacker is running towards them with the ball.

Rich: This area is easy for a goalkeeper to cover and it’s more difficult for an attacker to put the ball in at the far post.

Jack: We can use near post and far post when a player crosses the ball. The near post is the post closest to the player with the ball and the far post is the post that is furthest away.

Rich: We can also say front post and back post. This means the same.

Jack: When a team has a corner, a player might cross the ball to the front post or to the back post.

Rich: A common tactic at corners is for the defending team to put a player on the back post to head the ball off the line.

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

Should a goalkeeper get beaten at the near post?

Is it better to aim corners towards the front post or the back post?