Archive for August, 2010

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On this week’s podcast we spotlight the sides that have been newly promoted to La Liga. We also look at some of the footballing stories from last week and try to predict some of the big games this week in our predictions battle. Remember you can also:

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Subscribe: Main Listening Report

Each week on languagecaster’s podcast we feature a main listening report and on this week’s show we spotlight the newly promoted sides in La Liga. You can listen to the report by clicking below and can read the transcript below. Explanations of vocabulary in bold appear at the foot of the post.

Listen here to the main report

Transcript

As with most of the big leagues in Europe, there are three newly promoted teams in the top division in Spain this season. The three teams are Real Sociedad, who came top of the second division last season, and Hércules and Levante, who finished second and third respectively.

Antoine Griezmann - New Sociedad star?

Let’s start with Real Sociedad. The team is based in the Basque town of San Sebastian and have spent most of their history in the top flight, and were champions in 1981 and 1982, but relegated in 2007. Traditionally they only recruited Basque footballers, this policy changed in the late eighties, although they still try to keep a backbone of Basque players.  Coached by Uruguayan Martin Lascarte, Real Sociedad will be hoping to stay in La Liga after their two seasons in the second division. They have a tough opener against Villarreal, but playing at home will help them. Big things are expected of teenager, Antoine Griezmann. The French left winger has come through the youth set up to impress in pre-season friendlies with four goals in two games, so keep an eye on him. Predictions? A draw to open their campaign and a mid table finish.

Next, Hércules. Based in Alicante, on the coast in the west of Spain, Hércules have been in the second division for most of their history. Although they have had spells in the top league their highest ever finish was fifth. More normally, they tend to hover around the relegation zone when they make it to La Liga. Before a ball has been kicked this season, the team is involved in a scandal that threatens to upset their early season, with a major shareholder, Enrique Ortiz, and their captain, López, alleged to have bribed teams to lose against their team last season. Predictions? Hércules open with a home game with Athletic Bilbao. Expect a loss and relegation this season. continue

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

Tottenham make the Champions League group stage, an ugly melee spoils the Copa Libertadores final and trouble at Liverpool. These stories and more feature in this week’s the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which can be heard on our weekly podcast. Vocabulary support can be found for the words in bold at the foot of the post.

Good

Tottenham completed a remarkable comeback against Swiss side Young Boys this week to qualify for the group stage of the Champions League. Spurs last played in the European Cup in 1962 when they reached the semi-finals but getting out of the group would be deemed a success this time round. Peter Crouch was the hero this week with a hat-trick but young Welsh star Gareth Bale assisted in all four of the goals. Spurs face holders Inter Milan, Dutch champions Twente and German side Werder Bremen in the group stages – do they dare to dream?
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The Champions League draw has been made and the Italian and Spanish leagues kick off this weekend so football in Europe is very much up and running. We feature many of these stories on languagecaster.com’s weekly football podcast. For more football news come to our site, read the posts, listen to our main reports and check out our links section. continue

 Print This Post | Subscribe: Predictions

This week we feature the champions from the top 4 leagues in Europe: Barcelona; Bayern Munich; Chelsea and Inter Milan. Our guest this week is Marco an AC Milan fan.

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 Print This Post | Subscribe: Weekly Football Phrase

Every week during the 2010-11 season, the languagecaster team explain a football phrase or cliché. Click on the link below to hear the word or phrase and you can also read the transcript below that. You can find many more examples by going to our football phrase page here football clichés here and our huge football glossary here.

Listen Here: Gaffer.mp3 | See the complete list here

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Here is the Guardian newspaper’s preview of the German football season. WE have provided a brief summary at the start to help readers with comprehension, while vocabulary support for learners of English can be found at the foot of the post.

Background Information

The writer, Raphael Honigstein, previews the 2010-11 Bundesliga season in this article and since he is writing for a British audience he mainly discusses the former England manager Steve McClaren who has recently taken over at Wolfsburg. He does so in a rather tongue in cheek manner and makes constant reference to the image of McClaren holding an umbrella during his worst moment as Englland manager when he became known as the ‘Wally with the Brolley’

So, in paragraph 1 he begins the article with a humourous story that mentions the umbrella for the first time before moving on to discuss McClaren in paragraphs 2, 3 and 4. Paragraph 5 discusses some of the main transfers during the close season in Germany, while paragraph 6 discusses the financial state of the game there. In the next two paragraphs (7 and 8), he mentions the teams that might threaten Bayern Munich’s dominance, while in the following short paragraph those teams he thinks may be relegated are talked about. in the final paragraph he once more returns to the subject of the umbrella and McClaren by suggesting that the good weather forecast will mean the Englishman will not need his umbrella this evening and therefore will not be known as a wally anymore.

This article titled “Bundesliga 2010-11 season preview” was written by Raphael Honigstein, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 20th August 2010 08.34 UTC

Once upon a time in the mid-1980s, in a central Munich high school, there was an elderly Latin teacher called Hansi Hell. He had more than a slight speech impediment. In fact, it was a real lisp: the kind that spews forth warm fluids like a small-scale geyser. Herr Hell, a stern disciplinarian, naturally seemed completely oblivious to his own wet unpleasantness. One day, one pitiful pupil who had the misfortune of sitting in the drenched front row decided to fight back. He reached below his desk, pulled out an umbrella and opened it right in front of Herr Hell’s face.

That’s a true story. Certainly not true, however, are malicious rumours that football journalists in Lower Saxony have taken to wearing Roy Orbison-strength shades indoors in a similarly defensive measure to avoid being blinded. It’s quite the opposite, to be fair: the supernatural glistening of Steve McClaren’s perfectly shaped, calcified structures has not once been mentioned by the German press so far. The former England manager has bedazzled his audience in an altogether more agreeable manner: he has been charm personified and generally come across like a well-travelled, extremely confident winner-type.

Tonight, McClaren, “the pioneer from Yorkshire” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) will sit down on his bench in the Allianz Arena as the first ever English manager in the Bundesliga. “It’s an honour for me,” he said ahead of the season’s curtain-raiser that pits Double winners Bayern Munich against his attractive yet defensively solid Wolfsburg side. The feeling, it must be said, is rather mutual: there is a palpable sense of pride that a coach of genuine international calibre has been persuaded to add some new ideas and a new style of management to the familiar mix. His less-than-happy spell in charge of HM’s Bestest XI has been forgiven and forgotten – it’s always the next game that counts in German football anyway, never the past. In addition to that, foreign, non-German speaking managers still have tremendous novelty value in our somewhat insular league.

The 49-year-old is currently busy learning the language. All press conferences and interviews have been taken in English thus far. McClaren speaks deliberately slowly and often augments his words with gestures in the tried and tested fashion employed by so many Brits abroad. But to German ears, he sounds cool and sophisticated, not patronising. He’s also cleverly saying a lot of extremely flattering things that few non-native football men have said before. “The Bundesliga is a growing league, not just financially and (in terms of) the stadiums and the crowds but in quality as well,” he proclaimed, for example. “That’s why some of the best players in the world are attracted to it.”

Some of the best players in the World Cup are clearly more attracted by another league but the defection of Sami Khedira and Mesut Özil to Spain has done little to dampen either McClaren’s or the rest of the country’s enthusiasm for the new season post-South Africa. Hamburg striker Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting remains the biggest name in the league, literally, but there are one or two very glamorous additions. Schalke have miraculously snared Real Madrid icon Raúl, who has looked very sharp in pre-season. Michael Ballack’s return to Bayer Leverkusen is also exciting the crowds: the 33-year-old has a point to prove after losing the Germany armband to Philipp Lahm and maybe even more during his enforced absence at the World Cup. Some widely discussed private business has increased the pressure on the veteran midfielder.

Wolfsburg have failed in their attempt to buy Diego (Juventus) but might yet make another prominent signing. Everyone else has spent little money. Bayern, who have hinted at a record turnover of €350m (including the figures for Allianz Arena), did not buy a single new player. CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has warned that they’re close to hitting the glass ceiling in terms of generating income unless TV money – currently about €450m per season, a third of what the Premier League makes – increases. Growth in this area is difficult, however, because the league is hemmed in from both sides. The domestic media landscapes and political pressure make it hard for Sky Deutschland to succeed while internationally, the brand is still relatively weak. The “Kamikaze spending” (Alex Ferguson) witnessed elsewhere might be extremely dangerous but it’s also a helluva lot sexier for neutrals than financial prudence. Few people turn in to watch great house-keeping.

Last year’s average attendance record (just south of 42,000) is set to be smashed again, nevertheless, as Germans flock to the stadiums, almost irrespective of the quality on show or their side’s chances to win any prizes. Even the Bundesliga’s biggest structural deficit – a lack of a genuine second super-power to challenge Munich’s unhealthy dominance – has somehow become a very strong selling point: behind the perennial favourites Bayern, the field is so open that virtually half of the remaining 17 sides can consider themselves real contenders for a Champions League place. The race for Uefa’s riches will be even more competitive in two years’ time, when four starting berths will be available once more.

Louis van Gaal’s squad is clearly the best. But without Arjen Robben, laid off for at least two months after coming back from the finals with a left thigh muscle that reportedly resembles a half-eaten Biltong strip, Bayern won’t be able to run away with it. Leverkusen, Werder and Hamburg in particular should offer plenty of resistance, and feasibly a little more.

At the other end of the table new boys St Pauli, Hamburg’s red-light district, alternative Bundesliga club will at the very least provide plenty of good storylines, along with the honest, more straightforward returnees Kaiserslautern.

Just like tonight’s game, the season promises plenty of goals, interesting characters and a healthy dose of Teutonic madness. The ongoing redemption of one Steve M from Fulford will provide extra appeal from an Anglo-Saxon perspective. And the early signs are good, it has to be said: Munich’s Meterologisches Institutes predicts clear, sunny skies for this evening. The league’s first English football teacher will not need to bring an umbrella.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

Vocabulary

tongue in cheek manner: Not being so serious

‘Wally with the Brolley’: The idiot (wally) carrying the umbrella (brolly)

malicious rumours: Nasty gossip

bedazzled his audience: Impressed greatly those watching him

curtain-raiser : The opening game of the season

pits Double winners Bayern Munich against : To play against (one team versus another)

HM’s Bestest XI: A humourous reference to the England national side

to dampen: (The enthusiasm) Despite some problems people are still enthused by this year’s football

saying a lot of extremely flattering things: Saying very nice things

Schalke have miraculously snared Real Madrid icon Raúl: Schalke have signed Raul

the perennial favourites : Every year they are the favourites, the team to beat is always Bayern

Teutonic: Adjective to describe something German

Every Season we ask which team you think will win the Premier League. Last season the majority of fans correctly went for Chelsea but how about this season? Simply click on the poll below and let us know what you think.

It’s week 2 of the Premier League, the Bundesliga also kicks off and we salute Internacional of Brazil on winning the Copa Libertadores. These and many other news stories all feature in this week’s languagecaster.com’s football podcast. For more football news come to our site, read the posts, listen to our main reports and check out our links section. continue

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On this week’s podcast we take a look into the crystal ball and try and predict how Damon’s Liverpool and Damian’s Tottenham will finish this season. Remember you can also:

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