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On this football language podcast for learners of English, we look ahead to the 2022 World Cup and at some of the players who may miss out due to injuries. You can read the transcript for this podcast below, 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: World Cup 2022 Fitness Concerns
DF: 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 and I am based in a really, really wet London, while of course the other member of the team is Damon who is based in Tokyo in Japan – I wonder if World Cup excitement is building there?
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Hungarian)
DF: OK, on this podcast, we will continue with our 2022 World Cup build up and on this show we take a look at the language of injuries. Unfortunately, many players are in danger of missing out on playing in the finals mainly because there have been so many matches played in both domestic leagues and continental tournaments, such as the Champions League in Europe, in a really short space of time. This has meant that players have been over-worked and have had very little time to recover – there are high-pressure matches every three or four days for many of the players from the big clubs. So, we’ll take a look at some of the high-profile players who will or could still miss out on the Qatar tournament.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Norwegian)
Ruled out
DF: OK, so here are some of the players who are definitely out of the tournament. Paul Pogba suffered a knee injury in the summer and is ruled out, while his fellow French midfielder N’Golo Kante will also miss out – he has a hamstring problem, The absence of those two players will be a big blow for France in their bid to regain the World Cup trophy. Portugal are another side that will be weakened due to injuries with forward Diogo Jota set to miss the tournament along with fellow forward Ruben Neves: Jota has a thigh injury and Neves an ankle injury. The Dutch midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum will not play because he fractured his tibia in his right leg, German striker Timo Werner misses out due to an ankle problemA and Argentinian midfielder Giovani Lo Celso will not play for Argentina due to a hamstring problem. These are just some of the players that are definitely ruled out of the tournament – they will definitely not play in Qatar.
Doubtful/Fitness doubt/Sweat on the fitness
There are many other players who are currently injured but may still have a chance of playing in the finals. In this case we can say that they are 50-50 which means they have some chance of playing (around 50%!) or that they are doubtful which I think means they have less of a chance of appearing in the finals. If a team is ‘sweating on the fitness of a player‘ it means that they are worried that the player will not make it for the finals – to ‘sweat about something’ means to be worried about something. So, in the case of England midfielder Kalvin Phillips, who has hardly played for his new club Manchester City this season due to a dislocated shoulder, we can say that the England manager Gareth Southgate is sweating on his fitness. Raphael Varane, the French defender, is another doubt after injuring his thigh while playing for Manchester United against Chelsea – in fact he left the field in tears as he knew that he would not have much time to recover. The Tottenham and Brazil striker Richarlison also left the pitch in tears after injuring his calf though the Brazilian squad is more hopeful that he wil be available to play in the finals. His Tottenham team mate Heung Min Son is also doubtful to start for South Korea after fracturing a bone around his eye in a Champions League match against Marseille last week although there are now positive signs that the Korean star will be fit to play in the finals. Other players that are racing against the clock – this means they are running out of time to prove their fitness – include Senegal forward Sadio Mané, Mexican striker Raúl Jiménez, Argentinian forward Ãngel Di MarÃa, Portuguese defender Pepe and England defender Kyle Walker. We wish them all the best (or fingers crossed) that they can recover in time to play in the World Cup.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Greek)
DF: Right, let’s continue with our predictions for the 2022 World Cup and this time we hear from a fan from The Czech Republic who talks about which team will win, which team will be runners-up and also which team will be the biggest flop. And who’s going to win the Golden Boot.
Czech Republic Fan Zdenek
Okay, now, who do I think will be the biggest flops? Er…yeah, you know what it could actually be? Again, like any of those big teams, it has to be one of those big teams, Brazil, Germany, Argentina, France, England, Spain, one of those teams. I think the biggest flops this time will be Spain. But it could also be England. It really depends. It really depends. All it comes down to sometimes is just one match, right? One match in the play-offs in the knockout stages, one penalty shootout or one red card, or something like that. And the tournament is over for you.
Okay, who do I think will be the dark horses of the tournament? I think this time it will be either Croatia, Poland, or Serbia? I think it will be one of these three teams. Possibly it could even be one of the African teams, perhaps Ghana or Cameroon.
Okay, and the top goalscorer? Well, it can’t be Erling Haaland this time because Norway did not qualify. So… I don’t know, Mbappé from France. Okay, those are my predictions. Thanks for listening.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (In Irish)
DF: Thanks a lot for that Zdenek, some interesting predictions indeed, Mbappé as leading goalscorer and Brazil to win. Yes, a couple of other predictors have said similar things. He also used some really interesting language. When talking about Brazil he said, ‘I feel like their victory is, or has been, long overdue’. So, ‘long overdue’ means it’s taken a long time; people are waiting a long time for something to happen. So, Brazilian fans are waiting more than 20 years since Brazil last won the World Cup. The World Cup trophy is long overdue. Well, at least they don’t have to wait as long as England fans who have been waiting since 1966 so again, long, long overdue.
So, 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. There’s also a poll on our site and currently Argentina are favourites to win the World Cup according to the early votes so far.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (In Icelandic)
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. Now, we’ve started a couple of threads about the World Cup where you can post your predictions or simply ask and answer questions about World Cup language. You can also send us an email at admin@languagecaster.com and look out for us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Italian).
DB: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster and that message was in Italian and we’d love to hear from anyone else who might like to share this message, ‘you are listening to Languagecaster’. Did you notice that all of the language stingers on this week’s show were from countries that failed to qualify for the finals? We started with Hungarian, then Norwegian and Greek, followed by Ireland and then Icelandic before finishing with Italian. So, well done if you recognised any of those language stingers!
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.
2022 World Cup Predictions Competition
OK, we are getting close to 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 on our site here at Languagecaster. You can, of course, change the scores right up to kick off time and we will be offering some book tokens as prizes – so, come along to our site and fill in your scores.
Goodbye
OK, that’s it for this short football-language podcast in which we looked at some of the language used to describe injured players – players who might miss the World Cup. We heard lots of language describing injuries including a knee injury, a hamstring problem and a fracture of the tibia – which is in the leg. There is a list of all of the injuries mentioned on the podcast on this post on our site. We also heard from a Czech Republic fan and his predictions about the World Cup; Zdenek feels that Brazil will be champions for the sixth time. Do you agree? 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!
Vocabulary
- a knee injury
- hamstring problem
- thigh injury
- fractured his tibia
- ankle problem
- dislocated shoulder
- injuring his thigh
- injuring his calf
- fracturing a bone around his eye
Related Links
- Predictions competition
- 2022 World Cup: Wales and Ecuador Fans’ Predictions
- 2022 World Cup: Mexico Fan Prediction
- The language of injuries
- 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