Archive for November, 2011

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On this week’s predictions we feature the final games in the Brazilian Championship – a set of fixtures that includes some of the biggest derbies in the continent. Top-of-the-table clashes from the Premier League and Germany as well as two vital games from the Champions League complete this week’s predictions. You can listen to Damon and Damian discussing their predictions on this week’s show. Check out some language used in making predictions here. This week’s guest predictor is Mike who is a Newcastle fan.

Current Score: DB 82 | DF 60 | Guests 42

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On this week’s podcast, we hail one of the great modern footballers – Juventus and Italy’s Del Piero. 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

Automatically receive the podcast each week by clicking here

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In this week’s main listening report, we salute a remarkable achievement and a fantastic player as Del Piero appoaches 700 professional games. This report has a transcript below, as well as 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.

Background
This weekend, if he plays for Juventus against Lazio, Del Piero will have pulled on a football shirt in a professional game for the 700th time, and if he scores, he may well remove his shirt in triumph as he celebrates what would be his 284th goal for Juve, a team he has played at all his career except for 14 games for Padova at the start of 20 years of football.
In the modern game, it is incredibly rare for a player to spend so much time at one club, Piero has played at The Old Lady since 1993. He is their captain and talisman, replacing Roberto Baggio in the heart of the attack, and top scorer and although he has spent most of his time coming off the bench this season and has not been given a new contract by Juventus, he is the fans’ favourite. continue

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In this week’s review section, we congratulate the new MLS champions LA Galaxy, while we also feature the poor results of the two Manchester clubs in Europe. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast and can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below, or highlighted in blue.

Good

It has been a good week for the new MLS champions LA Galaxy as they defeated Houston Dynamo at the Home Depot Centre in Los Angeles. Irish striker Robbie Keane capped a great week for him after helping the Republic of Ireland to qualify for the European Championships when he combined with David Beckham to set up the only goal of the game for US star Landon Donovan. This goal gave LA their first title since 2005 and of course gave David Beckham his first since joining in 2006. It was fitting that LA won the title, after all, they had the best regular season record, had the best defensive record and they also managed to win the Supporter’s Shield and progress in the CONCACAF Champions League. Congratulations to the Galaxy.
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Each week the languagecaster team will explain a football phrase or cliche for learners of English who love the sport. On this week’s show we feature the phrase to be all over (a team). 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 be all over.mp3

This week’s phrase for football is ‘To be all over (a team)‘, which means that one team completely dominates another team: they are much better than their opponents. To be all over also means to be completely finished but when we use words such as a team, a team name or the pronoun ‘them’ after this phrase it changes its meaning to dominant. This week Tottenham beat Aston Villa 2-0 in a Premier League match but the scoreline did not truly reflect the dominance of the home side: they were all over Villa.

To be all over (a team)

Subscribe: Predictions

On this week’s predictions we feature some cracking games from around Europe, including two of the biggest rivalries around – one from Germany and one from France. You can listen to Damon and Damian discussing their predictions on this week’s show. Check out some language used in making predictions here. This week’s guest predictor is Hans who is a Derby County fan.

Current Score: DB 74 | DF 56 | Guests 40

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

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On this week’s podcast we feature the controversial FIFA president Sepp Blatter. 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

Automatically receive the podcast each week by clicking here

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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In a week when FIFA president Sepp Blatter was embroiled in yet another scandal: this time about race, we report on four of the many controversies that FIFA’s leader has been involved in. This report has a transcript below, as well as 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

The current FIFA President Sepp Blatter has become embroiled in yet another controversy: this time after his comments to CNN that racism on the football field does not exist. He is, of course, no stranger to controversy, and the 75-year old Blatter has a collection of ‘interesting’ comments and quotes since he was elected president of FIFA in 1998.

Sepp and Race

Ever since Blatter’s comments to some media outlets this week that racism does not exist in football and that if any racial comments have been made during a game then ‘At the end of the game, we shake hands…”. This has caused outrage among many involved in the game as well as politicians and journalists. Sepp appears to have been shaken by the fury launched at him – there has been widespread condemnation about his comments leading to many calls for his resignation. Many of those calls have come from the UK where political leaders and those involved in the game have joined together to attack the FIFA president, though it should be remembered that the English media has had a long-running battle with Blatter since the decision to not award the 2018 World Cup to England was taken. Blatter refuses to resign but he has subsequently apologised for his comments.
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In this week’s review section, we congratulate The Czech Republic, The Republic of Ireland, Portugal and Croatia on Euro 2012 qualification, while Guus leaves Turkey and Suarez makes the back pages for the wrong reason. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast and can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below, or highlighted in blue.

Good

It may have been a good weekend for Uruguay’s Luis Suarez, more on him later, as he scored all four goals in his side’s comprehensive 4-0 thrashing of Chile in the South American World Cup 2014 qualifying campaign but for this week’s good we congratulate the four European sides that made it through the play-offs to qualify for next summer’s European Championships that will take place in Poland and Ukraine. The Czech Republic comfortably saw off Montenegro, while there were also easy wins for Croatia who beat Turkey, Portugal who scored six against Bosnia, while the Republic of Ireland qualified for the Euros for only the second time, the first since 1988, by defeating Estonia 5-1 on aggregate.
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Each week the languagecaster team will explain a football phrase or cliche for learners of English who love the sport. On this week’s show we feature the phrase headless chicken. 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 wind someone up.mp3

This week’s phrase for football is ‘to wind someone up‘. When you wind someone up, you make them angry by making cheeky or insulting remarks. If you are wound up, you are angry. Football players often try to make their opponents lose their concentration, or lose their cool, by winding them up – perhaps by commenting about how they look or how they are playing. In our review of the football on this week’s show we talked about Luis Suarez being charged with racism – Evra will claim that Suarez was winding him up by racially insulting him, while Suarez may claim he was both players were winding each other up, but with no racist language involved.

To wind someone up