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Learning English Through Football Podcast: 2020-21 Women’s FA Cup Final

In this football language podcast for learners of English who love the beautiful game, we look at some of the language used to describe the 2021 Women’s FA Cup final between Arsenal and Chelsea. 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.

Learning English Through Football Podcast: 2020-21 Women’s FA Cup Final Chelsea vs Arsenal

DF: Hello again everyone, this is Damian from the Languagecaster.com team and we hope you are all well. Now, on this week’s football language podcast we feature some of the language used to describe the women’s FA Cup final between Arsenal and Chelsea from last weekend’s The Guardian newspaper, including the phrases, ‘unplayable‘ and ‘clip the ball‘.

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

Unplayable/Secure the treble

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Fran Kirby was unplayable as the Blues secured their delayed domestic treble for the 2020-21 season (Guardian.co.uk, December 6th 2021)
The Chelsea player Fran Kirby was so good in the final that she was described as ‘unplayable‘ in the report which means that no one could get near her because her level was much higher than anyone else on the pitch. To secure here means to succeed so when it is used with the word treble it means that Chelsea won the third of three titles – they won the treble. This cup win is of course last season’s title (2021) as the tournament was delayed due to Covid and so The Blues, Chelsea, have now completed the domestic (in this case England) treble: the 2020-21 WSL, the Women’s FA Cup and the League Cup.

Clip the ball/Deliver final blow

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Kerr clipped the ball delightfully over Zinsberger with 13 minutes remaining to deliver the final blow. (Guardian.co.uk, December 6th 2021)
Australian striker Sam Kerr clipped the ball over the keeper and this way of scoring is similar to dink over the keeper – the player skillfully lifts the ball over the goalkeeper. Clip, like dink, is associated with good technique and vision from the forward as the player knows exactly where the keeper and the goal are before lifting the ball. At the time of Kerr’s goal, Chelsea were already two goals up, they were winning by two, so Kerr’s clipped third goal meant the win was almost certain so we can say that she delivered the final blow against their London rivals. A blow, of course, in this case means a knockout hit as Arsenal could not come back from it.

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

Good Bye

DF: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster.com and that message was in Thai. That’s it for this week’s show in which we looked back at the phrases, clip, secure the treble and unplayable from the 2021 Women’s FA Cup final which Chelsea won. 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. We also have a football language forum where fans of the beautiful game can ask and answer questions on all kinds of football language – come along and join in the football language discussion. OK, enjoy all the football this week and we’ll see you again soon. Bye bye.

Learn English Through Football Podcast
Learn English Through Football Podcast
Damian Fitzpatrick

Learn English Through Football Podcast: A show for football fans to improve their English language skills

Welcome to the website that helps students interested in football improve their English language skills. Soccer fans can enhance these skills with lots of free language resources: a weekly podcast, football phrases, explanations of football vocabulary, football cliches, worksheets, quizzes and much more at languagecaster.com.

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