What is the meaning of the phrase ‘to bow out’ in football and when do we use it?
- Find out more about this phrase by reading the transcript below.
- You can also find many more examples of soccer vocabulary by going to our football cliches page here and our huge football glossary here.
To bow out
The expression ‘to bow out of a competition‘ is used to describe when a team loses in a cup competition, that is, they are knocked out and it suggests that the team were beaten without really getting close to winning. It has a slightly different meaning to the phrase dumped out of a competition which suggests that a team was surprisingly beaten – maybe by an underdog. Sometimes you will the hear the phrase being used along with the name of the competition (bowed out of) or even the round (bowed out at). So, for example, Leicester City bowed out at the quarter-final stage or the team bowed out of the FA Cup.
- Example: Barcelona bowed out of the Champions League after a scoreless home draw against Juventus.
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‘World Cup 2014: England bow out of competition with a goalless draw against Costa Rica …’ (From The Nottingham Post, June 2014)
What does “torment” mean in football?
12′ BLOCK! Traore continues to torment United. He bounds away from Wan-Bissaka before offloading towards Jimenez in space. The forward takes a touch before seeing his strike blocked by Varane
To torment someone is to make someone suffer so in football if a player torments another player it means they are playing very well and making the opponent suffer.