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On this football language podcast for learners of English, we hear from two football fans about their predictions for the 2022 World Cup. Who will be the winners, the flops, the dark horses and the Golden Boot winner. You can read the transcript for this podcast below and there is also a worksheet, while you can also check out our glossary of footballing phrases here and visit our site to access all our previous posts and podcasts – we have lots of World Cup resources too. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.
Football Language Podcast: 2022 World Cup Predictions – Wales and Ecuador Fans
Download transcript Download worksheetDF: Hello everyone and welcome to Languagecaster.com – the football-language podcast for learners of English who love the beautiful game of football. I’m Damian and I am one half of the Languagecaster team, regular listeners of the show will know that the other member of the team is Damon and he is based in Tokyo in Japan. I’m in London where the clocks have gone back this weekend and that means of course that although we may have got an extra hour in bed, Tokyo is now nine hours ahead of London so a little bit further away!
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in French)
Now, that message was in French and I wonder how many of the stingers that we use on today’s podcast you can recognise? They will all be from teams that have qualified for this year’s tournament and we’ll let you know what they are at the end of the show.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Portuguese from Brazil)
OK, on this week’s podcast, we are going to look ahead to the 2022 World Cup that is due to start in three weeks time and we’ll hear from two football fans from around the world on what they think might happen. We have a fan from Wales, who are playing in only their second ever World Cup and their first since 1958 and a fan from Ecuador who are appearing in their fourth World Cup. And both of these football supporters will be telling us what they think might happen in the Qatar World Cup. They will tell us who they think might be the winners, the runners-up, the flops – that’s the team that performs really badly, the leading goalscorer (the Golden Boot winner) and possible dark horses.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Polish)
Wales fan Gavin
DF: I started by asking Gavin which team he thought would win the tournament and which ones might be runners-up.
Gavin: Well, I hope for someone different this time, maybe someone not from Europe, because the thing… it’s been dominated by Germany, France or… Maybe someone from South America this year, hopefully. I think maybe the usual suspects are going to be there, aren’t they? You know, again, Germany and France, those sort of teams.
DF: Here’s what Gavin said when asked about a dark horse – remember that a dark horse is a team that is not a big or hot favourite before a tournament starts but one that many people feel might do well.
Gavin: Well, where there’s always one every World Cup I think, fingers crossed, it’s going to be Wales because I think we got two opening games which I think are winnable. And we could get onto the next stage and probably well, hopefully, do a repeat of 2016… I doubt it. But I don’t know hope but again, it’d be nice to see a dark horse from… from somewhere else, somewhere new.
DF: Gavin is hoping his team Wales will be the dark horse or the surprise package as they were in the 2016 European Championships in France when they reached the semi-final. He also uses a couple of interesting phrases here: ‘fingers crossed’ which means that he is hoping for something to happen and ‘winnable’ whichA means he thinks that Wales have a good chance of winning two of the group games to give them a chance of qualifying for the knockout stages. I then asked him about which team will be the flop of the tournament.
Gavin: Well, I mean, I would normally say England but I don’t care… no one cares anymore now about England so you know, maybe one of the… maybe France.
DF: How about the leading goalscorer – the Golden Boot winner?
Gavin: Wow! I mean there’s so many great players around. I mean, probably someone like Mbappé they might get the most goals but hopefully someone like de Bruyne I know he’s not goal scorer, but I mean he’s such a treat to watch it’d be…be nice to see him grab something because I don’t think Belgium will win it.
DF: Thanks a lot for that Gavin, interesting that he doesn’t think Belgium will win it – I think many feel that the Belgian ‘Golden Generation’ may have missed their chance of winning a major tournament. Well, let’s see.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (In Twi from Ghana)
Ecuador fan Martin
Next up we asked the same questions to Ecuador fan Martin from the Ecuador Heroes online account and here’s what he had to say.
Number two: runners-up. I think France, a lot of people are doubting France right now. I think when it comes down to the World Cup, the tournament, the big stage over there in Qatar, I think they’ll … they get…their get their attitudes up. You know what I mean? And push through like they did in 2018. I think Brazil will win but I think France does make it to the final.
Okay, number three. Flops, disappointment of the tournament. Many are gonna’ roast me about this one. I’m gonna say Argentina. Argentina. The… A lot of people are saying they can win the World Cup. It’s Messi’s ‘last dance’, etc… but they just won the Copa America. So Argentina is definitely, definitely a favourite. I’m gonna say, I don’t know, this is a wild pick. I’m gonna say they get out in the top eight. But we’ll see.
Number four, top goal scorer. If I got Brazil winning, I’m gonna go with Neymar, yeah. Neymar… he’s been playing incredible the past year the past two, three years, to be honest with you. I think, he’s gone 30… he’s 30 years old going into this World cup. And if I got Brazil winning, he’s definitely the captain, the playmaker. He’s also the penalty shooter, set piece taker on free kicks. So, yeah, I think Neymar can… can be the top goal scorer of this World Cup. And second place, I would go with Karim Benzema, for sure.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (In Spanish)
DF: Thanks for that Martin – some really interesting predictions there – I wonder what our Argentinian fans think about you calling them ‘flops’! Martin used some really interesting language there too including the phrase, ‘Brazil have subs for days’ which suggests that the Seleção (that’s the Brazilian team’s nickname) has a deep or strong squad – their substitute bench is full of great players.
So, what do you think of Martin and Gavin’s predictions? We’ll be sharing some more predictions from football fans from around the world over the next couple of weeks and of course if you’d like to add your predictions we’d love to hear from you – just drop us a line at admin@languagecaster.com.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (In Danish)
Football Question: Desmarque de ruptura y desmarque de apoyo
There was another of our stingers – what language do you think that was? [Danish] Now, we are always interested in hearing about football language from around the world and we have had a question from Javier who asked about the Spanish phrases, ‘desmarque de ruptura‘ and ‘desmarque de apoyo‘. Now, I know that ‘desmarque’ has something to do with losing your marker but I was not sure what the difference was so we asked the team @Multilingua F.C. – great resources for language learners who love football on Twitter – and they suggested that: ‘it has to do with losing your marker to attack (de ruptura) and the other (de apoyo) to help a teammate approaching to receive a pass’.
Yes, I think that makes sense – one of these is a player losing their marker themselves and the other involves a team mate helping them lose their marker. Thanks to Javier for the question and to the @Multilingua F.C. team for the answers – go and check them out on Twitter.
Contact
If you have any other football language questions or want to describe any other football terms in other languages then let us know by adding a comment on our site here or by using our forum. We’ve had some great questions recently on our forums including the phrases, ‘to sit deep‘ and ‘build up a head of steam‘. You can also send us an email at admin@languagecaster.com and look out for us on Facebook, Twitter and of course Instagram.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Dutch).
DB: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster and that message was in Dutch and we’d love to hear from anyone else who might like to share this message, ‘you are listening to Languagecaster’. It would be great to hear lots of different voices, especially with the World Cup coming up. In addition to this voice in Dutch we have also had Twi from one of our listeners in Ghana on today’s podcast. We have also had Spanish, one from Brazil (Portuguese), there was a Polish speaker there and we also had French of course to start us off [and Danish].So, well done if you managed to guess all of those language stings.
Don’t forget that there’s a transcript to this podcast and there’s lots of vocabulary support which you can access by coming along to our site – just click on the links in the transcript. Now, we also have a worksheet with this podcast – great for practising listening skills. We think it’s a great resource for those learning and teaching the language so let us know how you’re using them in your classes – we’d love to find out.
2022 World Cup Predictions Competition
OK, we are less than 30 days away from the start of the 2022 World Cup and here at Languagecaster we have our Predictions competition where you can guess the scores of all the matches from the Qatar tournament. It’s very easy to play – simply register (for free), choose your results and click on the save button here at Languagecaster’s website. You can, of course, change the scores right up to kick off time. And we hope to announce some prizes over the next couple of weeks, which will make it even more interesting.
Goodbye
OK, that’s it for this very short football-language podcast in which we asked a couple of fans about their predictions for the upcoming World Cup. Gavin felt Wales might do quite well as they had two winnable group matches, while Ecuadorian fan Martin thought Brazil would be winners and Neymar would be the Golden Boot winner. Let us know what you think will happen.
We’ll be back with some more language about the beautiful game very soon. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast and to join in the football-language conversation on our forums. Enjoy all the football this week and we’ll talk to you again soon. Bye bye!
Related Vocabulary
- Predictions competition
- World Cup Brazil v Italy 1982
- World Cup resources page (lots of posts, links, podcasts and football language about the World Cup
- 2010 World Cup Quarter-final Netherlands vs Brazil
- 2014 World Cup Group Stage: Spain vs Netherlands
- 1986 World Cup Quiz
- 1930 World Cup Quiz
- 1982 World Cup Quiz
- FIFA World Cup 1982
