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Each week we explain a soccer phrase or cliché on our weekly languagecaster podcast. You can find many more examples by going to our football phrase page here and football clichés here.

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This week’s English for football phrase is ‘to take out‘. This phrase has several meanings: if you take someone out for diner, you invite them to a restaurant, if you get a take out, you order food and take it home. In football, to take out means to tackle someone badly or to defend against a player so well that they cannot influence the game. The first meaning, to tackle a player and usually knock him or her to the ground, is used most. To take someone out implies an over the top, violent tackle. Recently, Arsenal player Aaron Ramsey accused Ryan Shawcross of trying to take him out when the Stoke City defender tackled him and broke his leg.

To take someone out.