Archive for August, 2011

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

This week we feature a huge story from the Premier League – the thrashings of Spurs and Arsenal. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast and can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below.

Good

I think this week’s good and bad are fairly obvious – the two Manchester clubs’ thrashings of the two North London clubs. Let’s start off with the Manchester City away victory at Tottenham. The 5-1 win did not flatter them at all, they bossed the game throughout and though the plaudits went to Bosnian striker Dzecko for his four-goal haul , Spanish star David Silva and Argentinian forward Kun Aguero absolutely tore the Spurs defence to shreds . If we were unsure of Man City’s title credentials beforehand we most certainly know all about them now. An hour later the red side of Manchester responded to the marker laid down by City by slaughtering Arsenal 8-2, with Wayne Rooney scoring a hat-trick and Ashley Young grabbing a brace . Can anyone stop the two Manchester sides?

Bad

I think it’s fair to say that it won’t be either Spurs or Arsenal as both were completely outplayed by their northern rivals. Spurs were torn apart by the quick passing and movement of City and some poor decision-making of their own throughout. Yet again goalscoring proved beyond them despite creating a hatful of scoring chances. Arsenal did manage to score twice but the fact that they allowed eight goals to go in – the first time since 1896 that they had conceded such a number – meant that they were humiliated at Old Trafford. Yes, they had a host of players out through injury and they also had a player sent off but they lacked courage, bottle, throughout. Lots of problems in the northern part of London then. continue

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On this week’s predictions we feature some of the big games from the European Championship qualifiers – teams are trying to reach the finals in Poland/Ukraine in 2012 – as well as some games from the Asian qualifying section for the 2014 Brazil World Cup. You can listen to Damon and Damian discuss these games on this week’s show. Check out some language used in making predictions here. This week’s guest predictor is Dan Pearce who helps his brother Ben run the excellent website LDN gentlemen which covers topics from football to music – and they are both Spurs fans! .

Current Score: DB 12 | DF 7  | Guest 9

If you would like to be a guest predictor for a week, let us know here

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 Print This Post | Subscribe: Weekly Football Phrase

Each week the languagecaster team will explain a football phrase or cliche for learners of English who love the sport. Click on the link below to hear the word or phrase, while you can also read the transcript below that. You can also find many more examples by going to our football phrase page here football cliches here and our huge football glossary here.

Listen here to Call up.mp3

This week’s English for football is the expression to call up which means to ask someone to represent their country. The phrase refers to when young people were asked to fight in the national army – they were called up to serve or they received a call-up. In football when the national side asks a player to represent the country, they earn a cap and this is also known as a call-up. This week England manager Fabio Capello has named three young Man United stars in his squad for the upcoming European Championship qualifiers – he has called them up. The players have received call-ups. To be called-up.

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Every week during the season, the languagecaster team will explain a football headline that has appeared in the English-speaking press. Click on the link below to hear the word or phrase, while you can also read the transcript below that. You can also find many more examples of football phraseshere , as well as football cliches here and our huge football glossary here.

Newspaper Headline of the Week: Rooney leads slaughter of the innocents

The Times Monday August 29th 2011

Listen here: Rooney leads slaughter of innocents.mp3

Most of the UK press focuses on the thrashing that Manchester United gave Arsenal (8-2) some used the phrase Super 8 (a film reference), while other headlines included Wenger’s Darkest Hour referring to the Arsenal manager’s worst moment in charge of Arsenal. The Times focused on Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney as he scored three goals, a hat-trick, in helping his side slaughter Arsenal – slaughter means to kill a large amount of people but is also used to describe when one team heavily defeats another side in football. The phrase ‘slaughter of the innocents‘ is a Biblical one that refers to the mass killing of infants by King Herod, in this sense innocents refers to the children. Innocents can also mean lacking in experience and here in the Times the writers are suggesting that the Arsenal team is full of young players with little experience (the innocents), who were were slaughtered by the Manchester United leader Wayne Rooney – Rooney leads slaughter of the innocents.

 Print This Post | Subscribe: Main Listening Report | Complete List Here

The Premier League has just kicked off and so Damon and Damian take a look at their respective team’s chances. Here is Damian looking ahead to his team’s Tottenham’s 2011-12 season, complete with worksheet, while there is also a transcript below. 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.

Download the Spurs Preview Worksheet here

Listen to the report on Tottenham here

After the rather disappointing end to last season when Spurs finished fifth in the Premier League and qualified for the Europa League, it appears that the pundits have already written off their chances for this season. Of course, when we talk about chances we refer to qualifying for the Champions League, finishing in the top 4, rather than the title which is still way beyond our reach.

It has been a very quiet pre-season at the Lane – rather unusual for both the club and a manager with Harry Redknapp’s reputation – and this low-level approach was further manifested by the fact that Spurs did not play on the opening weekend after the unrest in the area earlier in the week. It seems that the Spurs board will not buy any players until we sell some of the current squad meaning that David Bentley, Jermaine Jenas, Roman Pavulechenko, Giovanni dos Santos, Sebastian Bassong, Peter Crouch and Wilson Palacios may all be heading out the door. Irish captain Robbie Keane has already left to play for the LA Galaxy and Jaimie O’Hara is now with Wolves but the main transfer story at the Lane concerns our best player from last season: Luka Modric. The Croatian playmaker is wanted by Chelsea who will double his wages and offer him Champions League football. Tottenham have said no and it seems that this stand-off has caused a form of paralysis at the club where no one seems to know what is going on. continue

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On the third podcast of season 6, the team at languagecaster.com takes a look at Tottenham’s chances this season – this report has a worksheet with answers. Remember, 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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On this week’s predictions we feature some big games from La Liga and the Premier League, as well as a host of derby matches from the Brazilian Championship. You can listen to Damon and Damian discuss these games on this week’s show. Check out some language used in making predictions here. This week’s guest predictor is Marcelo from Brazil who is a huge Vasco da Gama fan.

 Print This Post | Subscribe: Weekly Football Phrase

Each week the languagecaster team will explain a football phrase or cliche for learners of English who love the sport. Click on the link below to hear the word or phrase, while you can also read the transcript below that. You can also find many more examples by going to our football phrase page here football cliches here and our huge football glossary here.

Listen Here To sing the praises of.mp3

This week’s English for football is the expression To sing the praises of which means to praise or to tell others of something or someone that is good. In football this phrase is usually heard when a manager wishes to highlight a really good performance from his/her team. On the opening day of the Premier League season, the Bolton Wanderers manager Owen Coyle sang the praises of Gary Cahill after his wonder goal helped his side to defeat newly-promoted QPR. To sing the praises of.

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

This week we feature stories from Spain and the Premier League. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast and can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below.

Good

Good news for Spanish football fans as the players’ strike, which saw last week’s opening fixtures postponed, has been called off. A compromise has been reached which means that the Spanish league has now guaranteed that players’ wages will be paid – they have set up a fund of over 250 million Euros. Players went on strike last week for the first time since 1984 as more than 200 footballers from both the first and second divisions had not been paid in recent months. continue