Archive for April, 2011

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Some interesting games in the Premier League – unbeaten in six versus no wins in six, and one of the ‘old’ Big Four takes on a pretender to the crown. We also go to Mexico for the first time this season, as well as try to predict the battle between third and fourth in La Liga. There’s also Serie A and Champions League. Check out some language used in making predictions here. This week’s guest predictor is Helen, a Spurs fan.

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On this week’s podcast we offer some suggestions to Fabio Capello, the Italian England manager, to help him increase his 100 vocabulary list. 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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Fabio Capello has been in charge of England for three years yet he feels he only needs 100 words to get his message across. Therefore, this week’s main report wonders whether a football manager needs to be able to speak the language of his or her players. There is a transcript below, while explanations of key vocabulary (in bold) can be found at the foot of the post, while other key phrases (in blue) also have meanings explained.

Introduction

Fabio Capello is never far away from the limelight or indeed controversy. This week he has been in the news again after it was revealed that he feels that he only needs 100 words or so to communicate with the England players. Now, that of course, may be a reflection of the England players but as English language teachers interested in football we wondered if we could help with Fabio’s lack of a footballing lexicon. continue

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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 pull the trigger.mp3 | See the complete list here

This week’s English for football is ‘to pull the trigger‘. The trigger is the part of a gun that you pull to fire the bullet. In football, when a player pulls the trigger he or she shoots. Usually the shot is a powerful one from around the edge of the area. This phrase is often used when a player has been running or dribbling with the ball for quite a long period of time and everyone is waiting or expecting a shot. Fans might shout ‘Come on pull the trigger!‘. Commentators might say, ‘He’s got to pull the trigger soon,‘ or if the player is tackled before shooting, ‘He should have pulled the trigger earlier.‘

To pull the trigger