World Cup

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So, the final two teams are left standing after what has been an enormously successful Women’s World Cup. The USA, pre-tournament favourites (along with Germany) and FIFA ranked No.1 in the world will take on Japan, the surprise package of the competition.

Although ranked fourth in the world before the Women’s World Cup got under way, the Japanese have stunned Germany and Sweden in the knockout stages to claim their berth in the final. continue

The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 is currently taking place in Germany and so in this post we feature a reading from 2002 by Tony Leighton on the history of women’s football. The pdf worksheet contains exercises on skimming, note taking, vocabulary building and summary writing – complete with answers. Download the worksheet here

Question – What do the Football Associations of, England, Holland and Germany have in common with China’s Qing Dynasty (founded 1644)? Answer – All four governing bodies at some stage banned women’s football.

Surprising though it may seem in the light of the boom in women’s soccer during the last decade of the 20th Century – and with the fourth Women’s World Cup finals set for 2003 – the game was cripplingly held back in earlier times through the prejudice of male-dominated organisations. The first known records of the game are frescoes of women playing football at the time of the Donghan Dynasty (AD 25-220). How far women’s football had progressed before the Qing Dynasty came to power is not known, but it quite obviously never became the Sport of Qings. continue

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Continuing our series of the world’s best footballers, languagecaster.com takes a look at a player who would be in most people’s top five best players ever – Hendrik Johannes Cruijff. Check out previous posts on great footballers here.

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Recently, a debate has started as to whether or not Messi is the best player ever, better than Pele or Maradona, the traditional choices of most people for that accolade. It’s probably too early to answer yes or no, but one thing is certain, he is a kindred spirit of Johan Cruyff (common spelling), perhaps the best proponent of attacking football, and close ball control, ever (watch a compilation of his dribbling skills here). he gives a name to a famous football move, ‘The Cruyff Turn’, and is forever linked with the term, ‘Total Football’.

Cruyff’s career can be divided into three broad periods: playing for Ajax, for Barcelona, and then his time as a coach.

First at Ajax. Cruyff joined the Amsterdam team as a youth player of ten-years old. The Ajax team of the late sixties and early seventies introduced the style of play known as Total Football, where players positions were fluid and interchangeable, and the focus was on quick passing, movement and attack. Cruyff was perfect for this style of football, as he could turn on a sixpence, continue

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This week’s main report continues with our series of profiling football super stars. Earlier this week we saw the retirement of one of the greatest strikers of this generation, O Fenômeno, Ronaldo. Explanations of key vocabulary (in bold) can be found at the foot of the post.

Introduction

Ronaldo started his career at Cruzeiro in Belo Horizonte before moving to the Dutch League with PSV Eindhoven as a 17 year old. There, despite not winning a league title, he scored a very impressive 66 goals in only 71 appearances before moving on to Barcelona under English manager Bobby Robson. That 1996-7 season at the Camp Nou made Ronaldo a star as he netted an amazing 34 goals in 37 games and though he did not win a league title with the Catalan side he did pick up the first of two World Player of the Year awards – making him the youngest ever recipient - along with the European Cup Winners Cup and the Spanish Cup. After only one season there, however, he moved to Serie A and to Inter Milan where he scored another 59 goals in only 68 games.
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The World Cup is over, Spain are Champions, Forlan has the Golden Ball, Thomas Mueller has been awarded the Golden Boot and Damian and Damon take a look back at the highs and lows of the tournament in the final languagecaster.com World Cup podcast. You can also:

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Every day during the World Cup, the languagecaster team explain a football phrase or cliché connected to this summer’s tournament. Click on the link below to hear the word or phrase and you can also read the transcript. You can find many more examples by going to our football phrase page here football clichés here and our huge football glossary here.

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Today’s World Cup phrase of the day is the expression littered with fouls which means that a game is full of fouls, that the game was a dirty one. The World Cup final between Spain and Holland promised to be a festival of football but instead we witnessed a game that was littered with fouls – Holland commited 28 and Spain 19. There were also 14 yellow cards in the game making it one of the dirtiest finals in World Cup history. To be littered with fouls. .

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The World Cup final takes place this weekend and we cast our eyes over the two teams and give our predictions. Vocabulary, in bold from the transcript of this report can be found below. You can also:

Transcript

Game 64 of the World Cup, has Holland taking on the Spanish to decide the winners of the 19th World Cup tournament. Neither of these two sides have previously won the trophy before and despite having great players in their team, good form coming into the competition and strong footballing traditions, few pundits had tipped them to reach the final. That is except those here at languagecaster – Damon predicted a Holland victory while I went for Spain. continue

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Every day during the World Cup, the languagecaster team explain a football phrase or cliché connected to this summer’s tournament. Click on the link below to hear the word or phrase and you can also read the transcript. 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 | See the complete list here

Today’s World Cup phrase of the day is the expression to go for it which means to try and win a game by all-out attack – it here refers to the game, to try to win the game. This phrase was used by both sides before today’s World Cup 3rd and 4th place play-off between Germany and Uruguay with both teams suggesting they would take the game very seriously and try to win it by attacking – by going for it. The game was an exciting, open affair with the Germans winning 3-2 and the game was a great spectacle as both teams had gone for it. To go for it.

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Every day during the World Cup, the languagecaster team explain a football phrase or cliché connected to this summer’s tournament. Click on the link below to hear the word or phrase and you can also read the transcript. 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 | See the complete list here

Today’s World Cup phrase of the day is the to not take lightly. If you take something lightly, it means you do not take it seriously, you do not think it is important. Most of the time this phrase is used in the negative - to not take lightly. Most people want to say that they do their job seriously, that they care about something, so they say they don’t take it lightly. Now in the World Cup there is always a game for the losers of the semi-finals, to decide a third place in the World Cup. Many teams, players and coaches take this game lightly, they do not think it is important. However, Uruguayan coach, Oscar Tabarez, has promised his team will not take this game lightly, that they will try to win. They feel it is worth coming third, that it is important. To not take lightly.

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Every day during the World Cup, the languagecaster team explain a football phrase or cliché connected to this summer’s tournament. Click on the link below to hear the word or phrase and you can also read the transcript. 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 (coming soon) | See the complete list here

Today’s World Cup phrase of the day is the expression to hold on. This phrase is often used with ‘lead’ – as in to hold on to a lead. This means a team does not give in when a team is attacking them and putting them under a lot of pressure. To hold, means to grip tightly with the hand, so to hold on, means to not let go of the game, to keep in the game and not lose or give up a lead. Today, Holland went two goals up against Uruguay in the World Cup semi-final and were leading 3-1. But they held on to win despite the fact that Uruguay scored a late goal to make it 3-2 and were attacking for most of the last 20 minutes. To hold on.