Learn English through Football Podcast: 2022 Manchester Derby

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In this week’s football language podcast for learners of English, we look back at some of the language from the Manchester derby between City and United. In particular, we look at the phrases ‘outclass‘; ‘over-run‘ and ‘restore their lead‘. You can read a 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. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.

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Learning English Through Football Podcast: 2022 Manchester Derby

DF: Hello again everyone and welcome to Languagecaster.com – the football-language podcast for learners of English who love football: the beautiful game. I’m Damian and I’m in London and on today’s short podcast I’ll be looking at some of the words and phrases from the Manchester derby that took place yesterday between Manchester City and Manchester United. To do this I am going to use a report from the BBC and focus on three expressions: ‘outclass‘; ‘over-run‘ and ‘restore their lead‘.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Thai)

Outclass

DF: So, in this latest Manchester derby, City ran out comfortable 4-1 winners – in fact, many pundits felt that the margin of victory could have been bigger – they could have scored even more goals. This is explained in the opening sentence of the BBC report when the writer uses the verb ‘to outclass‘ to describe City’s performance over United. Now, to outclass an opponent means to play much, much better than them, another expression that we have used on this site before is ‘to crush an opponent‘ which means that one side is so much stronger than the other side. Maybe if a team outclasses an opponent there is a suggestion that not only did they win easily but their style of football was simply much better too. In the second part of this sentence there is some information about what the result means for the Premier League title race – City’s comfortable victory means they are still top of the table and have some kind of control; they have the title in their own hands.

Over-run

Now, Manchester United did not play too badly in the first half and even though they went into the break 2-1 down (this means they were losing 2-1 at half-time) they would have been happy with how they had performed. However, in the second half they were completely dominated by City whose movement and passing was too good for the Red Devils – they could not get near City; they were over-run. If one side over-runs another side it means that they dominate them completely, they can easily attack them and easily create lots of chances. It wasn’t quite a game of two halves but United fell away badly in the second 45 minutes as City kept cutting through them. United were completely over-run.

Restore their lead

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So, Manchester City captain Kevin de Bruyne scored twice (a brace): his first was a crisp finish which means he hit the ball cleanly and with some power when he scored. Jadon Sancho equalised for United but then de Bruyne scored again to make it 2-1 and because City were back in front we can say that he had restored their lead – to restore means to bring something back to where it was before; so City have gone back into the lead thanks to de Bruyne’s second goal.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com. (Ahmed Adam from Sudan)

Contact

Thanks for that message Ahmed. Now, if you want to ask any football-language questions or simply say hello then you can do so by adding a comment on the site, using the forum, sending an email to us at admin@languagecaster.com or by looking for us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Swedish).

Goodbye

DB: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster and that message was in Swedish and we’d love to hear from anyone else who might like to share the message, ‘you are listening to Languagecaster.com‘ in their or indeed any other language. We have lots and lots of different languages but we are always looking out for more. And, don’t forget that there’s a transcript to this podcast and lots of vocabulary support which you can access by coming along to our site here at languagecaster.com.

OK, that’s it for this short podcast in which we have looked back at some of the words and phrases from the Manchester derby and in particular, ‘outclass an opponent‘; ‘over-run an opponent‘ and ‘to restore a team’s lead‘. Thanks again everyone for listening and enjoy all the football this week – there’s more Champions League second leg matches – and we’ll see you again soon with more football language. Bye bye.

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