Football English: After the match

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Language level

Learning goals

Skills: Listening

Language: Football English (things fans say after a match)

Task: Tell us about a match you've watched

Football English: After the match

In this week's Premier Skills English Podcast, Rowan and Rich have just finished watching their team on the TV. They have very different opinions about their team's performance. The language focus is on football English and words and phrases we use when our team has played well and when our team has played not so well. In this week's task, we want you to tell us about a match you've watched on TV. Don't forget to listen to the end of the podcast because we have a new football phrase for you to guess.

If the listening was a bit difficult, you can listen again and read the transcript at the same time.

Read and listen at the same time.

Football English: After the match

Introduction

Jack: Hello my name’s Jack

Rich: My name’s Rich

Rowan: and I’m Rowan

Jack: And welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Rich: In the Premier Skills English podcast, we talk about football and help you with your English.

Rowan: Don’t forget you can find the transcript for all our podcasts on the Premier Skills English website.

Jack: This week’s podcast focuses on football English and, more specifically, words and phrases we use to talk about a match that has just finished.

Rich: Sometimes our team wins, sometimes our team draws and sometimes they lose. Sometimes our team deserve to win and at other times our team are lucky or unlucky.

Rowan: We react very differently depending on what happened in the game and we use very different language. This lesson is all about what fans say after a match.

Jack: In our roleplay this week, Rowan and Rich have been watching their team on TV and the match has just finished. They have very different opinions about what they just saw.

Rich: After you listen to the roleplay, we’ll look at some words and phrases we often use after a match to talk about a team’s performance.

Rowan: And your task this week is to use some of the language we introduce in this podcast to talk about a match you’ve watched on TV.

Jack: If you are listening to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcast platform, you should also check out our website.

Rich: On the Premier Skills English website you’ll find the transcript, examples and activities to help you understand the language, and a task for you to complete.

Rowan: Before we start this week’s roleplay we need to look back at last week’s football phrase.

Last week’s Football Phrase

Rich: OK, our football phrase. If you’ve not listened to the podcast before, every week we set our listeners a challenge. We explain a football phrase or word and you have to guess what it is.

Rowan: When you know the answer, go to the Premier Skills English website and write the word or phrase in the comments section for this podcast. If you’re correct we’ll announce your name on next week’s podcast.

Jack: The new football phrase is at the end of this podcast but now we’re going to talk about last week’s phrase.

Rich: We’re going to give you one more chance to guess the right answer. Are you ready?

Rowan: The phrase was ********. It is used to describe a person or a group of people with less power or money than other people and in football is used to describe a team that has less chance of winning. If Liverpool play at home against Accrington Stanley, Liverpool are the favourites and Accrington Stanley are massive *********.

Jack: We had lots of correct answers last week but nobody was quicker with the answer than Daniel Baron from Colombia. Well done again Daniel! We know you work on it with your brother, but how do you get the answer so quickly?

Rich: A big well done to the following listeners who also got the right answer: Marco Zapien from Mexico, MoBeckham from Turkey, WSanta from Argentina, Max Alex from Vietnam, Hayato from Japan, Jacek from Poland, Elghoul from Algeria, Luibomyr and Sabanoleg from Ukraine, Simone Cavassi from Italy, Navid from Iran and Ahmed Adam Mamado from Sudan.

Rowan: If you remember, last week’s podcast was about preferences and choices and we asked you to make some choices.

Jack: Ah, yes! We went to the cinema in the roleplay - we went to watch James Bond in the end but we asked you which type of film you’d prefer to see.

Rich: Most people seemed to prefer comedies but some of you such as Abdoon75 from Sudan would rather watch an action film.

Rowan: Your next choice was whether you’d prefer to watch your country or club on television. I’d say about half of you chose your club and half your country. Vic from Mexico said he’d always prefer to watch his club because his country’s exit at the quarter-final stage of competitions is very predictable.

Jack: And finally we asked you if you’d prefer to read minds or be invisible if either was possible. My favourite answer was that being invisible is of no use in a visible world. Thanks to Alex from Ukraine for that answer.

Rich: If you haven’t heard this podcast it’s called Understanding Grammar: Choices and Preferences and you can find it on the Premier Skills English website or on Apple Podcasts.

Introduction to roleplay

Jack: As we said earlier, in this week’s roleplay Rowan and Rich have just finished watching their team on TV.

Rich: We have very different opinions about how our team performed.

Rowan: While you’re listening, we want you to answer some questions. The first question is: Did our team win?

Jack: The second question is: Does Rich think their team played well?

Rich: And the third question is: Does Rowan think our team played well?

Roleplay

Rich: What a game!

Rowan: I’m exhausted and I only watched it on TV!

Rich: I think we got away with it, to be honest.

Rowan: No way! We were much the better team.

Rich: Yeah, but I couldn’t believe it when they missed their second penalty.

Rowan: OK, I suppose we were hanging on a bit at the end but the referee had a stinker. Neither of them should have been penalties.

Rich: Hanging on? That’s an understatement. They were camped in our half for the whole second half.

Rowan: Some great last-ditch defending though. It was all hands on deck at some points.

Rich: The keeper has to be my man of the match. He pulled off three or four unbelievable stops.

Rowan: Our goal though - an absolute stunner!

Rich: Yeah, it was absolutely stunning but we won’t score goals like that every week.

Rowan: You really are a glass half empty kind of guy, aren’t you? Who do you think we’ll get next? I’d like United in the next round.

Rich: We’d have to play better than today but yeah, I reckon we could beat United. Bring it on that’s what I say.

Rowan: That’s more like it.

LANGUAGE FOCUS

Jack: Before the roleplay, we asked you three questions. The first question was: Did their team win?

Rich: Yes, our team won.

Jack: Did Rich think their team played well?

Rich: Not really. I thought we were a bit lucky. A bit fortunate to win.

Jack: What about Rowan? Did she think their team played well?

Rowan: Yes, I was much happier with the performance. I said we were much the better team.

Rich: In the conversation, we were talking after our team had played. The situation was that we had won the game. Let’s look at a few of the words and phrases we used.

Jack: Rich thought that they’d been lucky to win the match. He said; ‘I think we got away with it’. This is used to say that his team were lucky and that they might not have deserved to win.

Rowan: But I thought we deserved to win, so I said; ‘we were much the better team’.

Jack: These are a couple of useful bits of language we can use away from football: to get away with something and to deserve something.

Rich: To get away with something is connected to doing something wrong or badly and escaping or not being punished for it.

Jack: The clearest example is probably when we speak about crime. Listen to this:

Rowan: I can’t believe the murderer got away with it. This film is so unrealistic.

Rich: Rowan said our team deserved to win. We deserve something when we have done well or worked hard for a result. You deserve a good holiday if you work hard all year for example.

Jack: Let’s look at some other phrases from the roleplay.

Rowan: I said that the team were ‘hanging on at the end’. This is an expression to say your team was under a lot of pressure at the end of the match.

Rich: After a match, it’s also common to talk about players, referees and managers and whether they had good games or not.

Jack: Rowan said that ‘the referee had a stinker’, which means a very bad performance.

Rowan: And Rich said, ‘the goalkeeper was man of the match’ which means he was the best player on the pitch. You can also say that it was a man of the match performance.

Rich: I said that the goalkeeper pulled off three or four unbelievable stops. This is a really difficult sentence to understand.

Jack: To pull something off means to make or achieve something that was difficult or surprising.

Rowan: Goalkeepers stop the ball. They make saves but we can also describe them as stops. So we have the sentence ‘the goalkeeper pulled off three or four unbelievable stops’.

Rich: Another couple of idioms that we used in the conversation were connected to defending. They were last-ditch defending which is similar to last moment and all hands on deck which means everybody needs to help urgently in a situation.

Rowan: That last idiom was first used on ships and boats. The deck is the floor of a boat outside. The captain would shout all hands on deck when there was a storm and everyone would have to help get the ship through the storm.

Rich: Did you hear me say that the other team was camped in one half of the pitch during the roleplay?

Jack: Nobody was actually camping on the football pitch. When you say a team is camped in a half it means they have possession of the ball in one area of the pitch for a long period of time.

Rowan: We’ll look at these phrases and a few more in the lesson which you can find on the Premier Skills English website.

Rich: Before we finish our language focus I want to look at one more bit of language we used in the roleplay. It’s the bit when Rowan described our goal as an absolute stunner and I then described the goal as absolutely stunning.

Jack: A stunner is a fantastic goal - a goal that surprises many because it was so good. Stunner is a noun. We can use adjectives to describe or enhance nouns so Rowan said it was an absolute stunner. Absolute is an adjective.

Rowan: Rich then said the goal was absolutely stunning. Here stunning is an adjective and again we’re describing a goal that was surprising or shocking but in a positive way.

Jack: We can use adverbs to describe or enhance adjectives so Rich said the goal was absolutely stunning. Absolutely is an adverb.

Rich: So we can say the goal was an absolute stunner or the goal was absolutely stunning.

Rowan: Do you see the difference? We’re now going to play the roleplay again. Have a listen and check your understanding of the language we’ve been looking at.

ROLEPLAY

Rich: What a game!

Rowan: I’m exhausted and I only watched it on TV!

Rich: I think we got away with it, to be honest.

Rowan: No way! We were much the better team.

Rich: Yeah, but I couldn’t believe it when they missed their second penalty.

Rowan: OK, I suppose we were hanging on a bit at the end but the referee had a stinker. Neither of them should have been penalties.

Rich: Hanging on? That’s an understatement. They were camped in our half for the whole second half.

Rowan: Some great last-ditch defending though. It was all hands on deck at some points.

Rich: The keeper has to be my man of the match. He pulled off three or four unbelievable stops.

Rowan: Our goal though - an absolute stunner!

Rich: Yeah, it was absolutely stunning but we won’t score goals like that every week.

Rowan: You really are a glass half empty kind of guy, aren’t you? Who do you think we’ll get next? I’d like United in the next round.

Rich: We’d have to play better than today but yeah, I reckon we could beat United. Bring it on that’s what I say.

Rowan: That’s more like it.

TASK

Jack: This week’s task is to use some of the language we introduced in this podcast to talk about a match you’ve watched on TV.

Rich: The match could be a recent match from the Premier League, an important match your country played in the past or even a match that you’ve played in.

Rowan: We want you to tell us about your team’s performance. Were you lucky to win or did you deserve to win?

Jack: Try to describe the performances of the players, the referee and the opposition.

Rich: Look again at the phrases we introduced in this podcast and see how many of them you can use to talk about a match.

Rowan: Write all your answers in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

FOOTBALL PHRASE

Jack: Have you got a football phrase for us, Rich?

Rich: I have and it’s quite a difficult one. This week’s football phrase is to **** *** *******. In general, it’s an idiom which means to control events or other people. In football, it’s used to describe an influential player on the pitch - usually a midfielder. We can say Kevin De Bruyne ***** *** ******* for Manchester City.

Jack: Here’s a clue: think of a traditional puppet like Pinocchio and how it is controlled by someone above.

Rowan: Good luck with the phrase. If you are still wondering what the answer was to last week’s football phrase it was underdog.

Jack: Right, that’s all we have time for this week! Don’t forget to write your answers to our questions and make a guess at our football phrase in the comments below. If you get it right, we’ll announce your name on next week’s show.

Rich: If you have a question for us about football or English you can email us at premierskills@britishcouncil.org

Rowan: or you can leave your questions and comments on the website in the comments section or on our Facebook page.

Jack: or you could give us a rating and a fantastic review on Apple Podcasts.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football!

How much did you understand?

Here is the vocabulary you saw at the top of this page and how Rich and Jack used it in the roleplay. Do you know the words in bold?

I’m exhausted and I only watched it on TV!

Hanging on? That’s an understatement.

You really are a glass half empty kind of guy, aren’t you?

I’d like United in the next round.

I reckon we could beat United.

Bring it on! That’s what I say.

Listen to the roleplay again to hear how Rich, Rowan and Jack used these words and phrases.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has scored some absolute stunners in his Arsenal career.

Talking after the match

In this lesson, Rowan and Rich used lots of phrases that we use after a match. The phrases could be divided into sections depending on how you feel your team played:

your team deserved to win and won
your team deserved to win but lost
your team were lucky or fortunate to win

Look at following three sentences and match them to the three options above.

We were hanging on a bit at the end and got away with it when they hit the post.

We were the much better team. It could have been six!

I can't believe we lost that. They only had one chance in the entire game!

In the first sentence, the team is lucky to win. In the second sentence, the team wins deservedly and in the third sentence the team deserved to win but lost.

Can you think of any other phrases you might use in these three situations?

Marcus: Hey Paul did we deserve to win that? Paul: I'm not sure, maybe we got away with it!

A Lucky Win

The team that wins isn't always the team that deserves to win. There are many examples of teams who are fortunate to win. This often happens when teams defend a lot and then score on the counter-attack, or when an opponent misses lots of easy chances. In the podcast, Jack and Rich used the following phrases:

I think we got away with it, to be honest.

I suppose we were hanging on a bit at the end.

The phrase 'to get away with something' means to do something wrong and not be punished for it. In a sporting context, this means to make mistakes or not play well and still win, in other words - to be lucky. The phrase 'hanging on' means to be under a lot of pressure from the other team but still winning. This usually happens at the end of a match when the other team needs to score.

Son Heung-min has been in great form this season.

A Deserved Win

The team that plays well and takes their chances deserves to win and this is what usually happens. Here are some example phrases to use if your team has won easily:

We were the much better team.

We could have scored six!

We absolutely battered them.

These phrases are used to say that your team won (or should have won) easily. The final phrase 'we absolutely battered them' is quite strong and it means that we beat the other team very easily.

Do you know any other phrases you could use to describe a deserved or lucky win?

In this activity, check that you remember all the words and phrases Rich and Rowan used in the roleplay.

Activity 2: In this activity, type the words from the roleplay to complete the sentences.

Do CIty need to get Sergio Aguero back in the team?

Talking after the match

We want you to tell us about a match you've seen.

This week’s task is to use some of the language we introduced in this podcast to talk about a match you’ve watched on TV. The match could be a recent match from the Premier League, an important match your country played in the past or even a match that you’ve played in.

Tell us about your team’s performance. Were you lucky to win or did you deserve to win?
Describe the performances of the players, the referee and the opposition.

Look again at the phrases we introduced in this podcast and see how many of them you can use to talk about a match.

Write all your answers in the comments section below and don't forget to make a guess at this week's football phrase!