Grudge Match
In this football language post we look at the phrase ‘grudge match‘ as France take on Argentina in the quarter-finals of the 2024 Olympics. Don’t forget we have hundreds more explanations of football language in our football glossary and we also have a page full of football cliches. If you have questions or comments about this or any other phrase then email us at: admin@languagecaster.com.
Grudge Match
In football a grudge match is a game between two teams that do not like each other very much. A grudge is a negative feeling that someone has towards someone else – maybe because of something bad or annoying that had previously happened. We sometimes use the verbs ‘to hold’ or ‘to bear’ with the word grudge so to hold or to bear a grudge is when someone maintains a bad feeling against someone else (maybe over a long time).
In football, there are lots of rivalries between teams; maybe because of geography, history, religion or other reasons such as one team has recently defeated another in a controversial manner or simply that the teams don’t like each other. Argentina and France met in the quarter-final of the 2024 Olympics and many have called this a grudge match. France were defeated by Argentina on penalties in the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar and many in France felt that the winners were not so gracious in victory, especially in their post-match celebrations. And then after the recent Copa America victory in June, the Argentinian players were filmed singing a derogatory song about many French players of colour which caused a lot of controversy as it questioned the heritage of many of the French players.
The game itself was played in a fairly hostile atmosphere and was won by the hosts France (1-0). The grudge was there for all to see at the end of the game when France celebrated their win in front of the Argentinian bench. and this caused the players to clash – there was pushing and shoving – which continued in the tunnel. A French player was shown a red card for his part in the melee, which is of course when a large group of players are involved in pushing each other, and he will miss the semi-final game against Egypt. There is clearly no love lost between these two sides!
What other examples of grudge matches can you think of?
- Example: Argentina and France set for grudge Olympics match (BBC.co.uk, August 2 2024)
- Example: France and Argentina clash at final whistle of Olympic grudge match (Telegraph August 3 2024)
Glossary
