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A huge weekend of Premier League football is taking place with games at the top and the bottom of the table taking place and we look ahead to some of these games in our predictions competition. We also have some football language from the week including the phrase ‘snapshot‘ and the acronym G.O.A.T. There are also listeners posts and comments as well as our regular weekly football quiz in our football-language podcast. Of course you can read the transcript for the show in our post below (Damian = DF, Damon = DB).
Learn English Through Football Podcast: 2017 Tottenham vs Arsenal
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Transcript of the show
DF: You’re listening to Languagecaster’s football-language podcast. Hello everyone, my name is Damian and I am sitting here on my balcony in a sunny London waiting for the North London derby between Tottenham and Arsenal to kick-off later on today – as a Spurs fan I am feeling very nervous indeed! Apologies for the slight delay in this week’s podcast but both Damon and myself have been pretty busy over the past week. In fact Damon, who as regular listeners will know is based in Tokyo Japan, will not be with us this time round but will of course be back next week.
Line up
DF: Now, what do we have on today’s show? Well, we’ve had another another busy week of football with lots of games taking place and we’ll be looking back at some of those games in our review section – that’s the good, the bad, and the ugly. After that we have some more football phrases for you: ‘snapshot‘ and ‘on the road‘, as well as a discussion on some football abbreviations. And after all of that, we’ll finish up with our predictions and we’re going to look at three of the big games taking place today, Sunday, in the Premier League. It really is the business end of the season!
DF: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster.com and that message was in Thai. If you would like to record the message a€œYou are listening to languagecastera€ in your language then just send it on to us here at admin@languagecaster.com.
Good
DF: Right, let’s start with the good, the bad and the ugly. First of all, congratulations to Bayern Munich who won their fifth Bundesliga title in a row after thrashing Wolfsburg 6-0 away from home. Well done also to London sides Chelsea and Arsenal who defeated Tottenham and Manchester City respectively in the FA Cup semi-finals to reach the final. But really the stand-out performance of the week has to be from Leo Messi after his two goals helped Barcelona to a 3-2 victory over Real Madrid in last week’s clasico. He absolutely ran the show and his goal in the last second of the game has ignited the title race in Spain. The greatest of all time?
Bad
DF: After ten seasons in the top flight of English football, north-east side Sunderland were relegated to the Championship after their home defeat against Bournemouth yesterday. The Black Cats, that’s Sunderland’s nickname, have only won 5 games all season and none in the past 10. With their rivals Newcastle winning promotion to the Premier League for next season and two 1-0 defeats in four days it has been a miserable week for Sunderland.
Ugly
DF: Well, the Manchester derby took place on Thursday and though the game finished in a dull 0-0 draw, Manchester United midfielderA Marouane Fellaini was sent off for head butting Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero. Very ugly indeed.
Follow us
DF: Now, remember that you can follow us on twitter where our handle is @languagecaster, and you can find us on Facebook: Learning English Through Football, and we’d like to say hi to all those who have followed or liked us recently, including Will who commented on a question I asked on Facebook about football abbreviations. This week the GOAT, or G.O.A.T. acronym was used on social media quite a lot after Leo Messi’s performance in the clasico – the greatest of all time – GOAT. We also talked about the abbreviations COYS – Come on you Spurs for Tottenham fans – and YNWA which is used by Liverpool fans, ‘You’ll never walk alone’. Will added the phrase ‘WAWAW’ which stands for ‘We are all Wednesday aren’t we’ in reference to the fact that his favourite team is Sheffield Wednesday. If you know of any more football abbreviations or acronyms – these are abbreviations that you can pronounce as a word – then drop us a line at admin@languagecaster.com or you can join in the discussion on our football-language forum.
DF: Now next up we have some football language that emerged from the week.
Football Language: On the road
DF: Now this phrase was used this weekend as Premier League side Burnley finally managed to win a game away from home – on the road. In a football game one side plays at home a€“ the home team a€“ and the other is the away side. A common term heard to describe the away team is the phrase a€˜on the roada€˜ as the away team needs to travel to get to the game. So, for example, if a team has won on the road it means that they have won away from home. So, for example: The team failed to win on the road for the whole season means they lost all 19 games!
Football Language: Snapshot
DF: Our second expression also comes from a Premier League match from this week; this time from Tottenham’s on the road win at Crystal Palace. There are different ways of shooting in football, for example, a volley is where the ball does not leave the ground, a thunderbolt is a very powerful shot and a tap-in is a shot from close range that usually results in a goal. The expression a€˜snapshota€˜ is used to describe a type of shot that may be taken quickly by the player, that is, he or she may not trap or control the ball but hits it first time. These types of shots are often difficult to save as the keeper may not be ready to save them, while the shot also has little back lift which means that the ball travels on the ground rather than in the air. So for example, this week’s game between Tottenham and Crysrtal Palace a€˜Christian Eriksena€™s stylish snapshot is enough to secure victory!a€™ and this was found in the report from the Guardian.co.uk this week.
Quiz question
DF: OK, now it’s time for our weekly quiz question and this week’s quiz question is all about the North London Derby. And we’d like to know which team, Arsenal or Tottenham, is the older? Which of the two sides was founded first? We will have the answers at the end of the show.
Predictions
DF: Right, now it’s time for our weekly predictions competition. So, the overall scores for the season are: Well, I’m on 226 points and Damon is on 193 – he’s definitely catching up but may have left it too late with only a few weeks to go. For the current month, Alexrr has scored an amazing 41 points so far – possibly the most in one month this season – and he is followed by Damon on 25 and myself on 20.
Remember you can join our predictions and play in our monthly league by coming along to the site, languagecaster.com, and there at the top of the page you can see predictions competition – click, sign up or login for free and enter your predictions – we only have one more month to go.
Middlesbrough vs Manchester City
DF: Right, we have three games as usual and we’re going to start with Middlesbrough against Man City. I think I am going to go for a draw here as the home side need the points: 1-1.
Everton vs Chelsea
DF: Well, many football pundits see this game as one of the trickiest of Chelsea’s run-in as Everton have a very strong home record. Chelsea, however, are very good on the roadA and so I am going for a draw: 1-1 again.
Tottenham vs Arsenal
DF: Now, the last game that we feature is the North London derby between Tottenham and Arsenal. This will be the last time that this derby will take place at White Hart Lane’s old stadium as the club will play their home matches at Wembley Stadium next season while they wait for their new stadium to be built. It will be a big, emotional day at The Lane today… I’m going for a 2-1 win for Spurs. COYS!
DF: Now, if anyone would like to come on the show to talk about some football language or take part in our predictions then drop us a line at admin@languagecaster.com.
Quiz Answer
DF: And before we go, let’s revisit theA quiz question we asked earlier. We asked which of the two North London sides was founded first and the answer is Tottenham as they were founded in 1882 which is four years earlier than Arsenal’s foundation in 1886. Well done if you managed to get that right and of course we’ll have another quiz question next week.
Good bye
DF: That’s it for this week’s podcast – drop us a line and let us know what you think of our show. Enjoy all the football this week, including the Champions League semi-final first legs. We’ll have Damon back next week and we’ll see you then. Bye bye.
Check out our glossary of footballing phrases here
If you have any suggestions, contact us at admin@languagecaster.com