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On this week’s show we feature the World Cup of 1950 when Uruguay upset all the odds to win their second tournament and send Brazil into mourning. Remember you can also:

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 Print This Post | Subscribe: Main Report

Continuing our World Cup countdown we feature one of the most dramatic tournaments to have taken place, the 1950 World Cup in Brazil in this week’s main report. You can listen to the report by clicking above while vocabulary support can be found for the words in bold at the foot of the post.

Background

The 1950 World Cup was the first tournament to be held after the Second World War and as much of Europe’s infrastructure had been destroyed, FIFA turned to Brazil to host the fourth World Cup. Before the competition had even started there was drama with many teams pulling out for a variety of reasons: Argentina didn’t go because they were in dispute with their neighbours Brazil, Scotland had qualified by coming second in their group behind England but refused to travel as they were not British champions. Turkey pulled out and then so did their replacements, France, while India withdrew because they were not allowed to play barefoot. Austria felt their team was too young while Germany were banned from international competition leaving a total of 13 teams to participate. continue

 Print This Post | Subscribe: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Lyon shock Madrid, Portsmouth make it to Wembley, FIFA turn down technology and Wayne Rooney keeps on scoring goals. These stories and more feature in this week’s good, the bad and the ugly section of the podcast. Vocabulary support can be found for the words in bold at the foot of the post.

The Good

A good week for Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Lyon and Arsenal as they all made it through to the last 8 of the Champions League. The two English clubs won easily – United thrashed AC Milan 4-0, while Arsenal hammered Porto 5-0. Bayern lost 3-2 at Fiorentina but won through on away goals while Lyon caused the shock of the round with their 1-1 draw in the Bernabeu to knock out Real Madrid. continue

 Print This Post | Subscribe: English Football Phrase

Each week we explain a soccer phrase or cliché on our weekly languagecaster podcast. You can find many more examples by going to our football phrase page here and football clichés here.

Click here for the audio

This week’s English for football phrase is ‘to be cagey‘. If you are cagey about something, you do not give a clear answer, or make a firm decision. A cagey answer does not want to give away too much information, and a cagey player may be a clever, but cautious footballer who thinks a lot about the game. Managers are often described as cagey, especially when asked about their future plans. This week, in the Champions League, many people people have been asking Leonardo whether or not David Beckham will play against his old club Manchester United. But the manager remained cagey and would not say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Quote (ESPN Soccernet)

‘Leonardo cagey on Becks – Leonardo is not promising David Beckham a place in his starting XI at Old Trafford even though he knows how “special” it would be for the former Man United favourite.’

 Print This Post | Subscribe: Predictions

A London derby, a huge game in France, and our first look at a game from Mexico this season – two of the top teams go head to head there, as well as an important match in La Liga. And there’s still room for some Champions League action, too. This week, Greg, an LA Galaxy fan is our guest predictor.

Current Scores: DB 122 | DF 117 | Guest 105

We are in the run-in to many of the European league’s title races. If we look at the Premier League, it is Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham in the top four, while in La Liga Real Madrid are first, followed by Barcelona, Valencia and Mallorca.

Most league tables are based on how many points a team has. How about these top fours? How are they decided?