Archive for December, 2011

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On this week’s podcast, Damian looks forward to the exciting climax in the Brazilian championship with a host of derbies and the title in the balance. 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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 Print This Post | Subscribe: Main Listening Report | Complete List Here

In this week’s main listening report, we feature the final game of the 2011 Brazilian season. Nothing has been decided with the title, Libertadores places and relegation all going down to the wire. 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 sees the final round of the 2011 Brazilian championship taking place and the Brazilian federation have decided that the best way to avoid any suspicion of teams ‘throwing games‘ is to schedule a host of derby matches. Rivalry among teams from the same city or area in Brazil is huge so in Rio de Janeiro Flamengo take on Vasco and Botafogo play last year’s champions Fluminense. In São Paulo, Corinthians host Palmeiras and Santos are at home to São Paulo, while Internacional take on Grêmio in the Porto Alegre derby and América (MG) face Belo Horizonte rivals Atletico MG. Nothing has been decided yet with the title, final Libertadores places and relegation spots; they’re all going down to the wire. continue

 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. On this week’s show we feature the phrase to stun. 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 stun.mp3

This week’s English for football phrase is ‘To stun‘, which can mean to overcome, to knock out or to make someone feel overwhelmed or dazed. In football we frequently use this word to describe a situation when one team surprisingly defeats another. This week there were very surprising results involving two top Premier League sides: first Tottenham lost at home to Greek side PAOK in the Europa League, they were stunned by the Greek team. On the same night, Manchester United lost at home to Championship side Crystal Palace in the Carling Cup – they were stunned by Palace, Palace stunned United.
To stun

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

In this week’s review section, we feature a look back at the footballing life of former Welsh manager Gary Speed after his tragic death at the weekend. In addition to this sad story we feature a good week for Real Madrid and a bad one for one Premier League manager. 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.

Sad

The footballing world was saddened at the death of Wales manager Gary Speed at the young age of 42. Speed had only been in charge of the Welsh side since December 2010 but his impact on the team was immediate and in the last five matches Speed’s team won four which saw them rise to 50th in the FIFA rankings – their highest position for many years. Speed also played 85 times for his country, captaining the side on 44 occasions, while he was also the first player to play over 500 games in the Premier League. Speed started his career at Leeds, where he won a league title, before moving on to Everton, Newcastle and Bolton and then finally Sheffield United where he started out as a manager. The reaction from fans and players throughout the game since his death demonstrates the respect that the game had for Speed. Very sad news indeed. continue