Vocabulary: Week 3 2008/9

Here are some words and phrases you can hear on languagecaster’s Full Podcast’s Good, Bad and Ugly section - a review of the footballing news. For more English practice check out our worksheets, football glossary and English for football phrases as well as the Learners’ Podcast.

  • Indian summer - warm weather late in the year, summer weather in autumn

Blue skies at last up here in the north-west of England. Maybe we’re in for an Indian summer.

  • tough - difficult, hard

We’re also going to ask you which Champions League group you think is the toughest.

  • to retain - to keep, to win a cup or a title again

It was good for Argentina as they retain their Olympic title by defeating Nigeria one nil.

  • sweltering - extremely hot (and humid), sweaty

It was good for Argentina as they retain their Olympic title by defeating Nigeria one nil in sweltering Beijing.

  • bogey team -a team you traditionally do badly against, a team that you find difficult to beat

Nagoya finally beat their bogey team Kashima in the league.

  • to slot home - to score accurately, an accurate goal

Johnson slotting home the winner from the penalty spot to seal a famous victory.

  • to leapfrog - to overtake in the table, to go above in the rankings

It was also good for Urawa Reds who leapfrogged Kashima to go top of J-League.

  • horror tackle - a bad tackle that could result in injury, a very dangerous tackle (see x-rated tackle)

My bad this week is John Pantsil’s horror tackle on Arsenal’s Eboue during Arsenal’s defeat at Craven Cottage.

  • to put your money where your mouth is - to act on a promise, to do as you say

I wonder wether Platini’s going to put his money where his mouth is. I doubt it.

Leave a Reply

Trackback URI | Comments RSS