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In this football language podcast we look at the phrase ‘turn around (the game)‘ which is used to describe comebacks in football. 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. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.
Learn English Through Football Podcast: (to) Turn around (the game)
DF: Hello again everyone and welcome to Languagecaster.com – the football-language podcast for learners and teachers of English. My name is Damian and I am in London where Spring is starting to slowly appear. I wonder what the weather is like in Tokyo where, of course, the other member of the Languagecaster team, Damon, is living? A Now, first of all, I’d like to apologise for the lack of podcasts in recent weeks – both Damon and myself have been pretty busy at work but we will be publishing some more football-language podcasts over the next couple of weeks – we’ll try and catch up – especially as we now approach the business end of the season.
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DF: Yes, that message was in Spanish and remember that you can send us an audio in any language letting us know that you are listening to Languagecaster.com.
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DF: Now, on today’s show we will be looking back at three of the big games from the Premier League this weekend: Tottenham against Crystal Palace; West Ham versus Everton and the Manchester derby between City and United. Do you know what all these games have in common? Yes, they all finished 3-1 (Tottenham, West Ham and Manchester City all won). But all three matches had stoppage-time goals and in all three games the winning side had to come from behind to win. This means that although their opponents were winning at some stage in the game (so, Palace led in the 59th minute, Everton were leading early in the second half, while United took the lead in the first half of their derby), all three winning (or victorious) teams still ran out winners at the end. A nice phrase to explain this kind of win is ‘to turn the game around‘ (or ‘to turn the game round‘). We can also move the object and say ‘turn around the game‘, while the noun form ‘turnaround‘ is also a common way to describe this type of come back. Let’s look at this phrase a little more.
To turn around (the game)
The verb ‘turn something around‘ means that there has been a positive change in something; things were not going so well and then they improved so the bad situation has been turned around (and is now something better). So, in football if a team turns something around it means that they are now better than they were before. For example, to turn their season around means that a team was not playing well but then started to play better and win more games – this kind of turnaround can happen after a new manager is appointed (for example, the new manager bounce). Sometimes we might hear the phrases, ‘turnaround’ and ‘fortune’ together which means that the luck has changed: So, there’s been a turnaround in the club’s fortunes which means that now they’re a bit luckier than they were before.
Let’s take a look at some examples of the phrase ‘turnaround‘ from the three Premier League games at the weekend that we mentioned at the start of the show:
- A Phil Foden double and Erling Haaland’s stoppage-time strike earned Manchester City a 3-1 turnaround victory over Manchester United to move a point behind leaders Liverpool. (Premier League.com March 3 2024)
- Spurs secure late turnaround victory over Palace (Premier League.com March 2 2024)[Interestingly, both of them used ‘turnaround victory over the opposing team’, which here means ‘against’. So, they won their game against Manchester United or against [Crystal] Palace. They had a ‘turnaround victory over Palace’.
- West Ham scored twice in stoppage-time to boost their European qualification hopes with a turnaround 3-1 win at Everton (Sky Sports, March 2 2024)
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Glossary
DF: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster.com, and that message was in French. Remember, that here at Languagecaster, A you can find out more about some of the words and phrases that we have been discussing in today’s show, so for example, ‘turn around‘ – and many more football-language expressions by checking out our football-language glossary. All the entries are in alphabetical order, so just click on the letter the phrase or word begins with and then you can check out its meaning.
A-BC-DE-FG-HI-K L-NO-QR-ST-VW-Z0-9Football Language Glossary
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Contact
DF: OK, if you have any questions or comments about any of the words and phrases from today or any other football language then drop us an email at admin@languagecaster.com. You can also look out for us on Facebook, Twitter and on other social media platforms. Come along and say hello. We also have a football-language forum where you can ask and answer any questions you have on the language of football. Take a look at some of the posts there, do some of the quizzes, add a comment or a question or simply say hi.
Subscribe to our Podcast
DF: And of course, don’t forget to subscribe to our football-language podcasts. We have recently posted podcasts around the phrases, ‘to lump’ You can access all of our other football-language podcasts by coming A along to our site here at Languagecaster.com. https://languagecaster.com/podcasts/
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Goodbye
DF: OK, that’s it for this podcast in which we looked at some language around the phrase, ‘to turn the game around‘ or the noun form ‘turnaround‘ which is used when a team comes back to win a game after going behind earlier in the match. Let us know if you hear this phrase, in any language, over the next week. Enjoy all the football and we’ll see you all again soon. Bye bye!
Related Vocabulary
We can also say that a team ‘completed the turnaround’ with a further goal. So, for example, Tottenham scored a third goal against Palace to complete the turnaround. This suggests that they have come from behind and that there is no chance of Palace coming back.