This Week: A sensational start

Welcome to This Week from Premier Skills English, a weekly review of football action for learners of English from across the globe. In This Week, Jack talks about three stories from this week in the Premier League and there are lots of football English words and phrases for you to learn.

If the listening was difficult, you can listen and read the transcript 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 Skills English website at premierskillsenglish.britishcouncil.org where you’ll be able to download the podcast.

On the Premier Skills English 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 stories from the Premier League.

This week, I’m talking about Spurs' trip to Molineux to take on Wolves and Manchester City’s goal fest when they faced Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

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

Sensational
To outwit
To turn something on its head
To keep your head
Extravaganza
To settle into a rhythm
To fumble
Unconventional

Listen out for this vocabulary in the stories.

After the stories there will be a language focus and then there will be a language challenge for you to complete and then at the end of the podcast there will be a new football phrase.

But before that, I want to look at last week’s football phrase. If you didn’t hear it last week, here’s one more chance to guess now.

Last week’s football phrase was the ********. The ******** means the goal posts and crossbar. In the past, these were made of **** and the phrase is still used for parts of a building that are made out of wood, the frames and roof supports. I suppose a goal does look a bit like the frames that are used when building a house so this may be where the term comes from.

Congratulations to Alex from Ukraine, Denis2000 from Belarus, Wojciech M. from Poland, Hasan from Turkey, Vietnguyenngo from Vietnam, Goku from Japan, AndreTorre102 from Brazil, Elchueco from Argentina, Ken from Japan, Ryohei from Japan, Bicooz from Egypt and Mobeckham from Turkey.

You all worked out that the phrase I was looking for was the woodwork.

Keep listening till the end of the podcast for a new football phrase.

Now it’s time for the first story.

A sensational start for Spurs

It was a sensational start for spurs on a sunny Saturday at Molineux. In the third minute, Brennan Johnson scored his first Spurs goal which was also the fastest goal for the club this season. It was a great team effort, the result of wonderful play between Kulusevski and Porro. Kulusevski outwitted his marker with a backheel to Porro who played the cross. Credit to Johnson, though, who timed his run perfectly and got the goal

Wolves came close a couple of times in the first half, but couldn’t find the net. They kept pushing and played some good team football, but a combination of good defending and poor finishing meant that the scores stayed level all the way to the 91st minute.

A poor clearance gifted Wolves a throw in. Matheus Cunha received the ball and fired it through to Pablo Sarabia who caught it on the run. Sarabia took a touch and then volleyed the ball into the goal.

In the 97th minute, the match was turned on its head. This time, Sarabia made a run on the wing and saw Lemina ready to run. He slotted the ball past the spurs defenders who must have missed Lemina because he was left in space with just the keeper. The Gabonese midfielder kept his head and tucked the ball into the bottom corner.

Final score: Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur

The words and phrases from the story that I want to talk about are:

Sensational
To outwit
To turn something on its head
To keep your head

Sensational

The adjective sensational means very exciting, more exciting than normal. Most of the time, it’s used to describe a performance, either by an athlete or an artist. If the performance is really good, better than you might have expected, you can call the performance sensational. The adjective is also used in a negative way to talk about new stories if they are written in a way to be shocking and exciting. Tabloid newspapers in the UK are often not very serious and have lots of stories about celebrities. However, when they do report on the news, they tend to make the stories as exciting as possible, even if that means they misrepresent what actually happened. So the meaning of sensational is similar in both uses, but it’s used in a negative way to talk about newspapers and a positive way to talk about sports and the arts.

I’ve just looked for an example of sensational to test you in the language challenge and seen that the adjective is also quite commonly used by tabloid writers to describe the way women look.

To outwit

If you outwit someone, you beat them or win somehow by being clever, by being cleverer than them. I have to stop now and talk about the comparative form of the adjective clever. Normally, as I am sure you know, an adjective with more than one syllable that doesn’t end in a y takes the word more. In my head, more clever and cleverer both sound ok. There are some other common words that are commonly used in both more and -er forms in comparative statements. There is a list on the Learn English page that includes gentle, narrow, pleasant and simple. All of these adjectives, like clever, can be made comparative by saying that something is more narrow or more simple and narrower and simpler. However, although cleverer sounds OK, it does stick in my mouth a bit and I think in a formal situation I would say more clever. Some of the other examples on the Learn English page really feel quite wrong to me, even though I know that they are common uses and just because I wouldn’t form them, doesn’t mean they are wrong.

OK - sorry for getting side tracked. I said that Kulusevski outwitted his marker. He managed to gain an advantage over his marker by being clever.

To turn something on its head

If you turn something on its head, you completely change it, you make it the opposite of what it was. I guess it means to put something upside down. Usually, the head of something is at the top so if you turn something on its head, you completely change it. In the story, Tottenham were leading for 91 minutes. When Sarabia scored, it changed things, but when Lemina’s shot went in in the 97th minute, that completely reversed the situation and put Wolves ahead.
In other examples I have found, it often means to completely disrupt something. So an economic crisis might turn a stock exchange on its head. Or if a new invention completely disrupts an industry, for example how the internet changed how we listen to music, you could say online music services turned the music industry on its head.

To keep your head

Another phrase with head; and I have spoken about this before, but a long time ago. To keep your head means to stay calm and in control. The opposite is to lose your head. This is so important in football because the pressure to score is so great, it’s hard for even the most experienced players to stay calm and in control when they have an opportunity to score. I have spoken before about the noun composure, which is the ability to stay calm, to keep your head when under pressure. Often, we talk about people keeping their heads or losing their heads at times of stress more than times of pressure. So if you ever experience a disaster or witness an accident, that’s when being able to keep your head is important. In football, there are times when players get really angry, perhaps when a teammate has been fouled and that’s when they need to keep their heads or they make things worse for their team.

Let’s move on to the next story.

Fans treated to eight goal extravaganza at Stamford Bridge

Manchester City settled into a rhythm early on and started to squeeze their hosts. After two Chelsea players crashed into each other trying to clear a ball, City looked to take advantage and quickly played a cross over the sprawling defenders. Marc Cucurella hooked an arm around Erling Haaland and the referee awarded the visitors a penalty. Haaland made no mistake and City had the lead.

The visitors didn’t hold that lead for long. Chelsea were awarded a free kick on the edge of City’s area. Reece James played a fantastic ball that Ederson had to tip over the bar. Conor Gallagher took the corner and Thiago Silva scored with a header.

In the 37th minute, City made a rare mistake; Gvardiol fumbled the ball, leaving James free to cross. Raheem Sterling got to the cross and put the home side ahead.

At the end of the first half, Akanji equalised from a sublime set piece. City played a corner kick back to Bernardo Silva who lofted the ball over the scrum of players. Akanji knew what was coming and was already in the air, ready to head the ball in. It was 2-2 when the referee blew the half-time whistle.

90 seconds into the second half, Haaland put City back into the lead with an unconventional strike. Haaland’s timing was amazing. You can see him slow his run to let Alvarez catch up before throwing himself at the ball and sliding into the goal with the ball sort of between his legs.

Chelsea kept pushing back and were playing such positive attacking football that you knew there were going to be more goals. And in the 67th minute Gallagher blasted the ball at the goal with such power that all Ederson could do was block the shot which he pushed right into the danger zone where Nicholas Jackson was waiting to strike.

In the 86th minute, City went ahead again when Rodri fired a shot in. It looked like the Chelsea keeper would have stopped the ball, but it took a horrible deflection off the outstretched boot of Thiago Silva, sending it into the far corner.

In the final twist, Chelsea were awarded a penalty. 5 minutes into stoppage time, the referee pointed to the spot for a clumsy challenge on Armando Broja by Ruban Dias. Cole Palmer stepped up. Palmer was born in Manchester and joined City when he was 8. He was very much a City man until the end of the summer transfer window when he was sold to Chelsea. As he stood in the rain, looking at his old teammate dancing in the goal, it must have been ... emotional. But the 21-year-old didn’t show it and struck the ball with confidence giving Ederson no chance.

Final score: Chelsea 4-4 Manchester City

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

Extravaganza
To settle into a rhythm
To fumble
Unconventional

Extravaganza

The noun extravaganza is related to the adjective extravagant. We use the word extravagant to describe something that someone spent way too much money on. Some people spend loads of money on a fancy car or a luxury holiday. If the amount people spend is absurd or way higher than what you’d expect, you can say that it was extravagant. The regular noun form is an extravagance. So, my guitar is probably my biggest extravagance; it wasn’t that expensive, but I still think of it as an extravagance.
An extravaganza, originally an Italian word, used to mean a special type of show at the theatre. A production with very extravagant sets and costumes was billed as an extravaganza. So today, we use the word extravaganza for any sort of performance that is extravagant. You could argue that every match that is played between the big teams in the Premier League is an extravaganza, when you look at the amount of money the clubs have spent on their teams, but in fact, it’s used when there is a lot more action and entertainment than normal.

To settle into a rhythm

If you start a new job or move to a new city, at first, your life will be extra complicated as you work out how to deal with everything that’s new. However, as you get used to things, you get to know the new people and everything starts to feel normal instead of new, you could be said to be settling i a new routine or settling into a rhythm. It means to start living or working at a more comfortable pace, not stopping and starting and having to work everything out. In football, when a match starts, both teams will try to control the speed and intensity of the match to suit their playing style. At the start of a match, before the teams have settled, they are vulnerable and it’s quite common for teams to score early goals, before the players have settled into a rhythm. In the story, I said that Manchester City settled into a rhythm early, they looked like they had relaxed and were playing comfortably after only a few minutes.

To fumble

If you fumble, you do something awkwardly. If you are clumsy, you are more likely to fumble. I am quite clumsy. I’m not terribly clumsy, but if you throw me a ball, I will probably catch it, but there’s a good chance I might be awkward and not get myself into the right position to catch the ball cleanly so I might fumble the ball and drop it. Now, you’d never describe a Premier League footballer as awkward or clumsy, but sometimes, they misjudge the pace or direction of the ball and they fumble a pass or a shot and the ball gets away from them.

I’ve just looked for an example for the word to use in the language challenge and most of the google results are about American football. If a player fails to catch the ball, if they get a hand to it, but aren’t able to control it, that’s fumbling the ball.

Unconventional

The adjective unconventional is similar to unusual. It means different from what is expected. Conventions are the normal practices of a group of people. So in the UK, it’s a convention for family and friends to give presents to people on their birthday. I realise that this is a convention in lots of places. The adjective conventional is used to talk about traditional approaches and ways of doing things. The negative form unconventional is often used to describe the work of artists if they challenge conventional ways of thinking or seeing the world. I used the word in a slightly silly way. When Haaland slid into the goal pushing the ball across the line between his legs, I suggested that it was an unconventional way to score. Really, it was just a scramble. I don’t think it was a deliberate attempt to try some new skills.

Today, I’ve spoken about 8 useful words and phrases. The phrases I have spoken about are:

Sensational
To outwit
To turn something on its headTo keep your head
Extravaganza
To settle into a rhythm
To fumble
Unconventional

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