Archive for October, 2010

On this week’s podcast we celebrate the birthdays of two of the greatest ever footballers: Pele is 70 while Argentinian star Diego Maradona is 50. Remember on this week’s show you can also:

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Pelé and Maradona celebrate landmark birthdays this week and they also both feature in our podcast. Here is a Guardian article on the two superstars which highlights the fact that despite being world class players they are very different characters, with no love lost between them. You can take our quiz on Pele here and vote on who you think is the best player here. continue

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This week’s main report celebrates the birthdays of two of the World’s greatest ever players: Pele is 70 and Diego Maradona is 50. But which of the two can be regarded as the best? First up, Damon reports on Pele, which will then be followed by Damian’s profile of Maradona. After listening to the two reports you can vote on who you think was the greatest ever player below. To help you understand a little better there is a vocabulary list containing the words in bold at the foot of this post

Maradona Worksheet.pdf here

Pele Transcript

Each era has its heroes and stars. Today’s football world is dominated by players like David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, who are role models to many young players, but I wonder how long their influence will last.

There is one player that has stood the test of time and is the greatest World Cup player of all time. Pelé appeared in four World Cups, 1958, 1962, 1966 and 1970, scoring 12 goals – the third most by any player – and creating many more. It was his first and last tournaments in Sweden and Mexico respectively that cemented his reputation as a world great.
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Big derbies in England, Greece and Italy dominate this weekend’s fixtures, while we also feature Pele as he celebrates his 70th birthday. We also look back at a thrashing in Holland, some good news in Scotland and some violence in Italy in the Good the Bad and Ugly review section. For more football news come to our site, read the posts, listen to our main reports and check out our links section.
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FEATURED POSTS

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PREDICTION

This week’s featured match sees Tottenham take on Inter MIlan in the Champions League. Below are Damon and Damian’s prediction – what do you think?

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FOOTBALL EXPRESSION

This week’s football phrase for English is sorry. Now, sorry is used as an adjective usually to say you apologise for something or that you feel regret: for example, you say sorry for a mistake. It can also be used for a different meaning – to say that something is in a poor or bad condition, that it is awful. So, in football, if a team had a sorry performance, then they played very badly. If something is a sorry state of affairs, it means that something is in a very bad situation. Last weekend, PSV beat Feyenoord 10-0, an amazing scoreline. Feyenoord put in a sorry performance. The headlines said, ‘PSV thrash sorry Feyenoord‘
Click here for more football cliches and football phrases.
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This week’s QUIZ QUESTION:

How old was Pele when he scored in the 1970 World Cup final?

a. 26
b. 27
c. 28
d. 29

Answer next week.

The answer to last week’s question was A – Rooney scored his first goal against Arsenal in 2002.
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Come along to our online shop and browse books and DVDs related to football and English language teaching and learning.

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Check out the site for the latest polls – at www.languagecaster.com | Click here admin@languagecaster.com if you want to have your say on our weekly podcast. You can also follow us at Twitter

For all students of the beautiful game

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Stories from Scotland and Holland feature on this week’s football podcast as well as more bad news from Italy, while explanations of key vocabulary (in bold) can be found at the foot of the post.

Good

It’s not often that we feature a Scottish club side in the good section of our football review but it has been a great season so far for the current holders of the Scottish league title Rangers. Last Sunday they defeated arch-rivals Celtic 3-1 away to maintain their winning start to the season – that’s 9 victories on the trot now. They are also unbeaten in their Champions League group – a group that includes Valencia and Manchester United, so all smiles for the Blue side of Glasgow. continue

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Lots of big derby games this weekend from England, Greece and Italy, while the fourth round of Champions League group matches take place on Tuesday and Wednesday. All of these game feature on this week’s languagecaster.com podcast. This week’s guest predictor is Sean who is a Man United fan.

Check out some language used in making predictions here

Current Score: DB 40 | DF 36 | Guest 30

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Every week during the 2010-11 season, the languagecaster team explain a football phrase or cliché for learners of English who love the sport. 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.

Transcript

This week’s football phrase for English is sorry. Now, sorry is used as an adjective usually to say you apologise for something or that you feel regret: for example, you say sorry for a mistake. It can also be used for a different meaning – to say that something is in a poor or bad condition, that it is awful. So, in football, if a team had a sorry performance, then they played very badly. If something is a sorry state of affairs, it means that something is in a very bad situation. Last weekend, PSV beat Feyenoord 10-0, an amazing scoreline. Feyenoord put in a sorry performance. The headlines said, ‘PSV thrash sorry Feyenoord‘.

A sorry performance, a sorry team

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кухненско обзавеждане

On this week’s podcast Hans, our German correspondent, takes a look at how the International team is changing. Remember you can also:

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Each week on languagecaster’s podcast we feature a main listening report. This week, Hans (our German correspondent) talks about how players for international teams have more choices to make as they often come from culturally mixed backgrounds. You can listen to the report by clicking the link below and can also read the transcript. Explanations of vocabulary in bold appear at the foot of the post.

Listen to the main listening report here.

Nuri Sahin & Mesut Özil

The face of the international team is changing. When Germany played Ghana in South Africa it was the first time that two half-brothers were on opposing teams at a World cup. Kevin-Prince Boateng turned out for Ghana whilst his younger brother Jerome was in the German team. In this day and age of dual nationalities and immigration, both had to choose which country to represent.

For some national teams this is not new. France, for example, has had players of African decent in their team for a long time. Holland too. And other nations with a strong multi-cultural emphasis, such as Australia, have also benefited on the football pitch. continue