This week’s football phrase is to carve open which in football means to open up a defence.
- 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.
- This post also features in our podcast show, along with a main report and our weekly predictions.
(to) Carve open
This week’s football expression is the verbal phrase ‘to carve open’. We use this phrase in football to describe when an attacker easily breaks through a defence – they open up the defence. The verb to carve means to cut through something like meat for example, so when a player carves open a defence it means that the defence were unable to stop him or her, that the player easily went through the defence. To carve open.
- Example: In the 2015 Copa del Rey final Lionel Messi carved open the Bilbao defence with an amazing run.
- Example: The defence was carved open by a wonderful pass from Xavi.
