Archive for February, 2011

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On this week’s languagecaster podcast find out about planned changes to the FA Cup, listen to a round up of some of the big stories from last week, learn what ‘to draw a blank’ means and more.

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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.

Listen here: To draw a blank.mp3| See the complete list here

Transcript

This week’s English for football is ‘to draw a blank‘. This phrase originates in 17th century Britain and is a kind of lottery. Tickets were picked out of a pot. Some were winning tickets and had the name of the prize written on them, some had nothing written on them – they were blank and you won nothing. Another verb meaning to pick or choose something out of a pot for example is, to draw. So to draw a blank meant to win nothing, to not be successful. In football a team or a player can draw a blank, meaning they cannot score, they get no goals. This week in the Champions League, Manchester United drew a blank against Marseilles, they didn’t score and the game ended 0-0.

To draw a blank

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This week’s main report talks about the English FA Cup competition. Explanations of key vocabulary (in bold) can be found at the foot of the post.

The English Football Association are looking to make changes to the oldest cup competition in the world the FA Cup. The FA Cup competition is about 140 years old: the first tournament was first held in the 1871-72 season. Teams playing as low as the ninth tier of the league pyramid take part in the opening rounds. It is a knockout tournament with a replay and extra time and penalties if the first game is drawn.

On one side, are traditionalists that want to keep the competition as it is, and those on the other side, who believe it is becoming a distraction to the real business of the League and European competitions. continue

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Our football review of the week look sat the big club competitions in Europe and South America, a setback for FIFA in its search for reliable goal-line technology and trouble flaring in the West Midlands derby in England . You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast and can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below.

The Good

Smash and grab revenge for Bayern Munich at Inter as the German team won 1-0 in the last 16 knock out phase of the Champions League. Partial revenge for losing to the Italian team in the final of the same competition last year. Inter dominated but it was a 90th minute goal stabbed home by Gomez that sealed the first leg win for Bayern. Meanwhile in South America and the Copa Libertadores, newcomers to the competition, Cerro Porteno from Paraguay hammered Chilean Colo Colo, also making their first appearance in the cup, 5-2. With Brazilian team Santos and Deportivo Tachira from Venezuala drawing in the other group game, the azulgrana will already be confident of progressing. continue

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Damon must be looking forward to this week’s fixtures after doing so well in last week’s predictions’ battle. We have games form the English FA Cup, the Premier League, top-of-the table clashes in Italy and Germany and a big game from La Liga all to look forward to. You can leave your predictions as a comment below. Check out some language used in making predictions here. This week’s guest predictor is Sean, a Man United fan.

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On this week’s podcast we feature one of the greatest striker’s of this generation, Ronaldo, who retired this week. Remember on this week’s podcast you can also:

• Listen only to the main report here – complete with transcript and vocabulary
• Learners of English can review the footballing news from around the world in our good, the bad and the ugly section of the show
• Check out a new football expression in English for Football
• For learners of English check out our Football Language Resources page with:
• A page with all our Football vocabulary posts
• Football glossary (a huge collection of football vocabulary, football cliches and football phrases)
• Worksheets and transcripts from previous podcasts

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This week’s main report continues with our series of profiling football super stars. Earlier this week we saw the retirement of one of the greatest strikers of this generation, O Fenômeno, Ronaldo. Explanations of key vocabulary (in bold) can be found at the foot of the post.

Introduction

Ronaldo started his career at Cruzeiro in Belo Horizonte before moving to the Dutch League with PSV Eindhoven as a 17 year old. There, despite not winning a league title, he scored a very impressive 66 goals in only 71 appearances before moving on to Barcelona under English manager Bobby Robson. That 1996-7 season at the Camp Nou made Ronaldo a star as he netted an amazing 34 goals in 37 games and though he did not win a league title with the Catalan side he did pick up the first of two World Player of the Year awards – making him the youngest ever recipient - along with the European Cup Winners Cup and the Spanish Cup. After only one season there, however, he moved to Serie A and to Inter Milan where he scored another 59 goals in only 68 games.
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Our football review of the week looks back at the Champions League matches in Europe. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast and can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below.

The Good

A really good week for my team Tottenham as they won 2 away games in 4 days. First up, they came from behind to win 2-1 against Sunderland to move up to 4th place in the Premier League. Spurs have now won 20 points this season from losing positions which may show a weakness in defence but it also shows a great spirit exists in the camp. This spirit was demonstrated yet again when they defeated 7-times European Cup winners AC Milan 1-0 in the San Siro on Tuesday. Peter Crouch scored the winner and Tottenham now have a really good chance of making the last 8. continue

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A really big week of fixtures awaits with 2 chances of giant killing in the English FA Cup, 2 further matches from the last 16 of the Champions League: a repeat of last year’s final, as well as a chance for Real Madrid to take some revenge over Lyon. There are also a host of derbies from around Europe including Glasgow, Lisbon, Athens and the English Midlands. You can leave your predictions as a comment below. Check out some language used in making predictions here. This week’s guest predictor is Elisa, a Malaga fan.

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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.

Listen here: To hit on the break.mp3| See the complete list here

Transcript

This week’s English for football is ‘hit on the break‘ or ‘hit on the counter‘. Both these phrases mean the same thing – to attack the other team quickly after defending for a long period. Many teams sit back in defense and wait for an opportunity to hit their opponents on the break. They see that the other team has too many players committed to attack and, with two or three quick players, move from defence to attack with a few quick passes. The opposing team is thrown on to the back foot (has to defend) as they are hit on the counter. This week in the Champions League Tottenham were under a lot of pressure playing away at AC Milan. Milan were attacking and camped around Tottenham’s box, but a quick break from Lennon who squared the ball to Crouch saw Tottenham score on the counter.

To hit on the break