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Learn English Through Football Podcast: Squeak Past
This football language podcast looks at some football language from an FA Cup tie between Man United vs Leicester, including to squeak past.You can read the transcript for this podcast below 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.
DB: You’re listening to Languagecaster’s Learning English Through Football Podcast. Hi there everyone. Welcome to the Learn English Through Football Podcast. I’m your host Damon, and I’m talking to you from Tokyo, which is again bright, sunny, but cold. Lots of snow on the other side of Japan to Tokyo, but blue skies here. How about Damian and London? 
DF: Hello everyone and hi to you too Damon from a wet and very cold London. I am okay, though as it’s the day after the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final game between your team Liverpool and my favourite team Tottenham, I have been better! We can talk about that game later on in the show. What else do we have on this week’s podcast?
Today’s Show
DB: I’m sure you’ll get over losing to Liverpool 4-1 on aggregate in the semis when Spurs win the Europa League! Right, as you said, we’ll hear from you later with your comments on the Liverpool Spurs game and some football language from it. You’ll also be giving us your predictions for some cracking games this weekend. But before that, we’re going to take a look at some football language from the 4th round FA Cup tie between Manchester United and Leicester City.
This week is the 4th round of this old tournament, and typically this round has more of the top teams matched against each other. Many of the non-league or lower division sides will have been eliminated, or knocked out, in the 3rd round.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Indonesian)
DB: OK, that message, or stinger, was in Indonesian, and we’ll hear more messages in different languages throughout the show – listen and see how many languages you can recognise. Or even better, send us a message in your language (‘Hi. My name’s (NAME) and you are listening to languagecaster.com’). Send it to us at admin@languagecaster.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Tagalog)
Squeak Past
DB: Right, the FA Cup fourth round match between Manchester United and Leicester. Going into this game, United were heavy favourites, as Leicester were in terrible form with eight losses in 10. The Manchester side did run out winners 2-1, but they needed a late winner in added time. Their performance was not convincing, was not good, and they were lucky to get the winner. In this situation, we can say they squeaked past Leicester or they squeaked into the fifth round.
If a team squeaks past another, they are lucky to win. You may also hear ‘squeeze past’, which means the same thing.
Chalk Off
DB: Leicester City manager, ex-Man United striker Van Nistlerooy, certainly thought United were lucky to win. He was angry that the winning goal was given, as it looked clearly offside. He thought the goal should have been chalked off. To chalk off a goal is to disallow it, to cancel it.
In this round of the FA Cup, there is no VAR to check on decisions, but TV replays certainly showed that Man United defender Maguire’s goal should have been chalked off, as he was offside.
Here is what the Guardian said about the incident: ‘With no video assistant referee in the competition until the next round, Maguire’s winner was not chalked off despite the assistant referee being perfectly in line to see he had infringed.’
So, Man United squeaked past Leicester and into the fifth round after their winner was not chalked off for offside.
In Liverpool’s game against Tottenham, Szoboszlai had a goal chalked off rightly for offside, but that didn’t stop Liverpool from an emphatic win. here’s Damian with some language from that game after this.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Twi – Ghana).
Register a shot on target
DF: OK, as I mentioned earlier on at the start of the show, Spurs were thrashed in the second leg of the Carabao Cup (that’s the old League Cup) which meant that they lost 4-1 on aggregate (in total) to Liverpool and failed to make the final. Not only did they lose badly but they also played really badly. They barely attacked all game which was a surprise to many pundits who feel they should have reverted to their more usual attacking style of football. Tottenham only had five shots all game and none of these shots were on target – they didn’t work the keeper – the Liverpool goalkeeper had a very easy night indeed.
So, Spurs failed to hit the target and another way of describing this is to say that they didn’t register a shot on target. To register something in this case means to achieve something so Spurs failed to achieve even shooting on target; never mind a goal. They failed to register a shot on target for the first time this season.
We can also sometimes hear the verb register used to describe when a team wins a game – they registered a win which means that they won. Hopefully, we can register a win at the weekend in the FA Cup, or at least register a shot on target!
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Catalan)
DB: Yes, it was a surprise to many that Tottenham weren’t more attacking, but I think we have to recognise they had a lot of injuries and that Liverpool were very very good on the night. OK, let’s move on to the predictions section, and here’s Damian again to look at four games from across Europe.
Predictions
DF: OK, it’s FA Cup 4th Round weekend in England and we feature an all-Championship affair between Leeds and Millwall – remember that the Championship is the second tier or level in English football. We also have games from Germany and Spain, including the big Madrid derby.
Now last week in the predictions I had a good week and have increased my lead over Damon and the guests to eight points and hopefully I can continue with this week’s games.
FA Cup Fourth Round
Right, it’s the FA Cup Fourth Round and we look at the game between Leeds, who are top of the table and look favourites to be promoted to the Premier League next season, and they take on or they play against London side Millwall. I think the home team Leeds will win this one: 2-1. That tie takes place on Saturday as does ‘el derbi de Madrid‘ which of course sees Real Madrid host their city rivals Atlético Madrid in a top-of-the-table-clash that sees both teams only separated by one point. I always have a soft spot for Atlético and think they may get a win at the Bernabeu – maybe 2-1 for Simeone’s team.
La Liga…
On Sunday we have another game from La Liga – this one sees Sevilla taking on Barcelona. The Catalan side have re-found their early season form and so I think they will comfortably win this one… 3-0. The other game on Sunday is from the Bundesliga in Germany and features Leipzig against St Pauli: 1-0 to Leipzig for me – sorry St Pauli fans!
What do you think of those predictions? Let us know (and) drop us a line here at admin@languagecaster.com.
DB: Thanks Damian, I agree with the result and score for that last game. I think RB Leipzig will ease to a 1-0 home win, which will be a tough one for St Pauli fans who see their community focused club as the opposite of what they see as a new corporate club, Red Bull Leipzig.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Urdu)
Contact
DF: Right. If you have any questions about language of football or any comments on our podcast, then please contact us via e-mail at admin@languagecaster.com. Come along to our website and check out our Football Language Forum where you can ask and answer any questions you have on the language of football. And, of course, don’t forget to come along to our huge glossary of football vocabulary – lots of expressions and phrases and cliches. And we’d love it if you could spread the word about what we’re doing here. Give us a like, maybe follow us on social media where we’re on Instagram, Facebook and Blue Sky, YouTube and many others.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Italian)
Goodbye
DB: Great stuff. Yes, please do contact us, follow us, and give us some likes! And thanks for that final message, which was in Italian. Listener, how many languages could you identify today? We started with Indonesian, followed by Tagalog, Twi (Ghana), Catalan, Urdu and that last one in Italian.
Thanks for listening today – we looked at many phrases today, including squeak past, chalk off, and register a shot. Let us know if you hear these phrases while watching football, in any language of course!
Enjoy all the football and we’ll be back early next week with a new football language expression. Ta-ra!
DF: Thanks everybody. Enjoy all the football this week. And we’ll see you soon. Bye bye.
Learn English Through Football Podcast: A show for football fans to improve their English language skills
