Liverpool are champions!

This week, in the Premier Skills English podcast, I’m talking about Liverpool, who have just been crowned Premier League champions.

The language that I am going to talk about is:

To draw level
To make an impact
Phenomenal
The atmosphere
To seal the Premier League title
Resilience
A cut above the rest
To triumph / a triumph

Listen out for this vocabulary in this week’s story.

If you find the podcast difficult to understand, you can read the transcript and listen at the same time.

Read the transcript and listen at the same time.

Hello, my name’s Jack and welcome to the weekly round-up called This Week on Premier Skills English.

In This Week, we’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

If you are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you can also visit the Premier League British Council website at premierleague.britishcouncil.org where you’ll be able to download the podcast.

On the Premier League British Council website, you can read the transcript and join the Premier Skills English community by completing a language task in the comments section. This will really help you remember the new words and phrases from the story from the Premier League.

This week, I’m talking about Liverpool, who have just been crowned Premier League champions. It's been a historic campaign for the Reds – full of goals, glory, and some phenomenal performances from the likes of Mohamed Salah.

The words and phrases I am going to talk about today are:

To draw level
To make an impact
Phenomenal
The atmosphere
To seal the Premier League title
Resilience
A cut above the rest
To triumph / a triumph

Listen out for this vocabulary in this week’s story.

Liverpool are champions!

Liverpool have won the Premier League title. It’s their second title in the Premier League era and their 20th top-flight league title overall. And that 20th title means Liverpool have now drawn level with Manchester United’s record for the most English league titles.

What makes it even more impressive is that they’ve done it in the first season under their new manager, Arne Slot. Talk about making an instant impact! Under his leadership, Liverpool have recorded 25 wins, 7 draws, and only 2 defeats. Reflecting on the achievement, Slot described it as “quite unreal” and spoke with great pride about leading a club he had once only dreamed of being part of.

And you can’t talk about Liverpool’s success without mentioning Mohamed Salah. He’s had a phenomenal season – one for the record books! Salah’s performances have been a huge part of why Liverpool have been so strong this year. He’s topping the Premier League charts with 28 goals and 18 assists, contributing to over half of Liverpool’s total goals. It was his sixth season reaching double figures in both goals and assists – and his fourth in a row. Salah is now on track to claim both the Golden Boot and the Playmaker award.

The atmosphere at Anfield and across the city of Liverpool was electric as fans celebrated their team's Premier League triumph. In fact, Liverpool fans all over the world are celebrating. It’s been a massive moment for the club, back at the top of the Premier League, proving they’re still a giant of English football.

Liverpool sealed the Premier League title in style on Sunday, 27th April 2025, with a resounding 5–1 victory over Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield. It was a dominant performance that left no doubt about who deserved to lift the trophy this season.

Despite going behind early – with Dominic Solanke scoring for Spurs in just the 12th minute – Liverpool responded with confidence and control. From that moment on, they took command of the match, showcasing the resilience and determination that have defined their campaign.

The emphatic score line not only secured the title, but also sent a clear message: this Liverpool side has been a cut above the rest. The result put them out of reach of their closest challengers, Arsenal, with four matches still remaining. That’s quite an achievement – and it places this title win among the earliest in Premier League history.

All in all, it was a comprehensive, confident performance that perfectly summed up Liverpool’s season – full of energy, quality, and belief. And with the Anfield crowd behind them, it was a fitting place to celebrate another historic moment in the club’s story.

The vocabulary from the story that I want to talk about is:

To draw level
To make an impact
Phenomenal
The atmosphere
To seal the Premier League title
Resilience
A cut above the rest
To triumph / a triumph

1. To draw level

In football, when one team draws level with another, it means they have scored enough goals to have the same score. It can also refer to reaching the same number of points as another team in the league table. The phrase is interesting because often in foot ball English, to draw means to finish a match with the same score as your opponents so that neither team wins. However, in the story, I used the verb draw to mean to move in a particular direction. So you can say that a train draws into the station and if you’re sitting in your car at a traffic light, a police car might draw alongside. In this football use, when a team draws level, it means the team moves into a level position and the sense of a draw, meaning finishing with the same score influences the choice of phrase but not the meaning directly.

2. To make an impact

To make an impact means to have a strong or noticeable effect. In football, this often refers to a player or manager who quickly influences the game or the team's performance – especially when they are new. We do also use the phrase to talk about the effects of changes in other areas of life. So when a politician changes the law, perhaps they try to influence the ways that countries trade and do business with their country, if the effect of the change is strong, then you can say that the policy made an impact on ... trade for example.

3. phenomenal

Something that is phenomenal is extremely impressive, amazing, or successful. In football, we use it to describe outstanding performances, players, or seasons. I like the word phenomenal because I think it's nice to say. We also use the noun form a phenomenon to talk about something or someone that is unusually impressive.

4. atmosphere

In football, the atmosphere refers to the mood or feeling inside a stadium, usually created by the fans. It can be exciting, tense, loud, or emotional depending on the situation. The word comes from science and it means the mixture of gasses around the planet; it’s the air that we breathe. But we also use it to talk about the air in a room and that’s how it has come to mean the mood or character of a place.

5. To seal the Premier League title

To seal the Premier League title means to officially win it – usually after earning enough points or winning a crucial match. Once a team has sealed the title, no other team can catch them. Normally, we talk about sealing a container. This means to close a container or an entrance so that nothing can enter or exit, so that nothing can be put in or taken out. Most commonly, if you are sending a letter, you put the letter into an envelope and then seal the envelope by sticking the flap down. If you’re sending a parcel, you might seal it with tape before you send it. So to seal something fixes it, so it can’t be changed. Liverpool sealed the league title when they scored enough points so that their closest rivals could not score enough to catch them.

6. resilience

In football, resilience is the ability to keep going, stay strong, or come back after difficulties – like going behind in a match, losing form, or facing tough opponents. This is an important quality for everybody. It’s hard as a parent to resist the urge to help your children whenever they have a problem, but it’s necessary for them to develop resilience so they can keep going and learn to tackle problems.

7. a cut above the rest

When someone or something is a cut above the rest, it means they are clearly better than others. In football, this might describe a team, a player, or even a performance that stands out for its quality. I have tried looking up the origin of the phrase and some people think it comes from clothes. In the past, a tailor would literally cut the fabric for your clothes and so better quality clothes were better cut. However, I suspect that the term may come from golf. In a golf competition, in the second round, the judges would eliminate the players that hadn’t scored well enough and the threshold was called the cut. Players that made the cut were the players who had done well enough. So the cut became a synonym for the standard for inclusion or for success. So if a player was a cut above the rest, it would mean that they would survive the cut even if the threshold were raised. I’m not really sure about the etymology, but I am sure that Liverpool have been a cut above the rest this season.

8. triumph

This can be a verb: to triumph which means to win, especially after a challenge or a noun: a triumph is a great victory or success, often used to describe major wins like a cup final or a league title. I have always liked this word. When I was a little kid, I remember singing a Christian song at school that had a line about a triumphant celebration and I always had an image of people playing trumpets to celebrate. I realise that this is not really very helpful for you to learn the word triumph so I’m not completely sure why I’m telling you ... But it’s a nice word.

Today, I’ve spoken about 8 useful words and phrases.

The words and phrases were:

To draw level
To make an impact
Phenomenal
The atmosphere
To seal the Premier League title
Resilience
A cut above the rest.
To triumph / a triumph

Listen to the stories one more time to hear this language in context.