football phrases

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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 stripped of the captaincy’. Click on the link below to learn about the word or phrase, while you can also read the transcript. 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: Stripped of Captaincy.mp3

This week’s football phrase is ‘to be stripped of the captaincy’ which means that the captain of a team has lost this particular role, he or she has been demoted, has had the armband taken away from him or her. The noun captaincy refers to the position of captain of the team, while the passive verb form to be stripped means to have something completely taken away. This week the England defender John Terry was stripped of the captaincy after allegations of racial abuse against another player. He is no longer the England captain. ‘To be stripped of the captaincy’.

How good is your knowledge of the language of soccer? This is languagecaster.com’s weekly football language review quiz with five questions for you to answer. During each week of the season check our twitter feed, read our posts, and learn phrases, cliches and words related to football, to help you answer the quiz.

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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 introduce the phrase ‘a sweet strike’. Click on the link below to learn about the word or phrase, while you can also read the transcript. 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: A sweet strike

This week’s football phrase is a sweet strike. To strike is a verb, which means to hit, and in football to kick or to shoot, and in this phrase strike is used as a noun. The adjective sweet means very good, beautiful or great, and often is used when the player hits the ball in the perfect place. In combination, a sweet strike means a fantastic shot, perhaps a volley that is beautifully timed, an unstoppable piledriver, or a great free kick. The phrase can also be used with strike as a verb, as in, he struck the ball sweetly. This weekend, Gareth Bale scored a goal against Manchester City with a sweet strike on the edge of the area, but it wasn’t enough to stop his side, Spurs, from losing. A sweet strike.

How good is your knowledge of the language of soccer? This is languagecaster.com’s weekly football language review quiz with five questions for you to answer. During each week of the season check our twitter feed, read our posts, and learn phrases, cliches and words related to football, to help you answer the quiz.

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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 booked for dissent’. Click on the link below to learn about the word or phrase, while you can also read the transcript. 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 booked for dissent

This week’s football phrase is ‘to be booked for dissent’ which means that a player receives a yellow card for using bad or rude language to the referee. It can also occur when a player questions a referee’s decision or disrespects the officials. In yesterday’s clasico game between Real Madrid and Barcelona Carlos Pujol was booked for dissent when complaining about an earlier decision. to be booked for dissent.

How good is your football vocabulary? This is languagecaster.com’s weekly football language review quiz with five questions for you to answer. During each week of the season check our twitter feed, read our posts, and learn phrases, cliches and words related to football, to help you answer the quiz.

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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 make a comeback’. Click on the link below to learn about the word or phrase, while you can also read the transcript. 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: Make a Comeback.mp3

This week’s football phrase is ‘to make a comeback’ which is not normally connected to football but last weekend saw two former Premier League stars return to play for their old clubs: they have made a comeback. On Sunday in the Manchester derby Paul Scholes surprised everybody when he was named on the Manchester United bench in the FA Cup tie against rivals Manchester City. The following day, in the same competition, former Arsenal striker Thierry Henry came off the bench to score the winning goal for Arsenal on his return to the club he had served so well. Indeed, both players made winning starts to their comebacks. To make a comeback.

How good is your football vocabulary? This is languagecaster.com’s weekly football language review quiz with five questions for you to answer. During each week of the season check our twitter feed, read our posts, and learn phrases, cliches and words related to football, to help you answer the quiz.

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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 stay the course’. Click on the link below to learn about the word or phrase, while you can also read the transcript. 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 stay the course.mp3

This week’s languagecaster football phrase is also a phrase used in horse racing. It is ‘to stay the course‘. The course in the phrase refers originally to the racetrack horses ran on, but when the phrase is used in football ‘course‘ becomes the season – in the Premier League in England the season is 38 matches.’To stay‘ means to last, to be able to complete, to finish, but also it has the added nuance of keeping the same good performance level. So, to stay the course means to finish the season strongly, to continue playing as well as now. As we start 2012 there are 18 games left in the season and Manchester City are playing well and are three points clear, but can they stay the course? Can they keep top spot until May? To stay the course.

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On this week’s main listening report we look back at some of the key football words and phrases from 2011.

There have been many candidates for word of the year 2011: Arab Spring, planking, phone hacking, bunga bunga have all featured in many end-of-year polls. Global financial difficulties saw both the Oxford Dictionary and The Economist choosing squeezed middle as their word of the year, while occupy is tipped to be chosen by the American Dialect Society as their word of 2011. Here at Languagecaster we’ve already looked back at some of the big footballing stories from 2011 in last week’s main reports and though we do not pretend to hold the same influence as some of these media outlets we thought we would come up with a list of some of the words and phrases that have best defined football in 2011 – maybe even Fabio Capello can learn some! continue