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In this week’s football language podcast for learners of English, we look back at some of the language from two games from the last 16 of the 2022 Champions League. We also look at the phrases ‘backheel‘ and ‘get stamped on‘ and answer some football language questions from our listeners. 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: 2022 Champions League Last 16
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 a very blustery London – we’ve just had a storm passing through the UK – I wonder what the weather is like in Tokyo where of course Damon is based. Hi Damon.
DB: Hi Damian. Good to talk to you. It’s been a while. No storms here in Japan just a cold, grey day. A lot of the Sunday league football games have been called off here in Tokyo, as it rained all last night and the pitches are now waterlogged. A good day for watching football rather than playing. Talking of which, what have you been watching recently?
DF: Well, I saw my favourite team Tottenham go to the league leaders Manchester City yesterday and score three times to win, which was great, although I was a nervous wreck watching it on television. Everybody loves a last-gasp winner! This was a huge surprise as Spurs had lost their previous three matches while Man City had scored nine unanswered goals in their past two matches – they had not conceded any goals at all. Now, football is a funny old game is an expression, a cliche, that can sum up that result but there is an expression in Spanish that you might be interested in Damon, ‘hay liga‘ – literally it means that there is league.
DB: So, is that a bit like in English saying ‘the title race is back on’? Liverpool winning and Manchester City losing means there’s a gap of six points between the teams. Liverpool have a game in hand and have to play Manchester City, so if they win those matches, the two teams will be even. I think I’ll wait a bit, as a Liverpool fan and supporter, before I say ‘hay liga‘ though!
DF: Typical football fan pessimism! Yeah, the title race is definitely on; it’s…the title race is heating up I think we can also say.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Swahili)
AFCON 2021
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DF: Now, regular listeners will know that we have been following the 2021 African Cup of Nations over the past four weeks including last week’s show which focused on the final between Egypt and the eventual winners Senegal. Damon, did you get to see any of the the recent African Cup of Nations?
DB: Unfortunately I didn’t, Damian, apart from some highlights. But congratulations to Senegal becoming champions of Africa for the first time. Well deserved!
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in French)
DB: OK, let’s turn to some football language from last week’s Champions League and the match between PSG and Real Madrid. Damian will talk about a kind of pass, a backheel. OK, let’s take a look at this phrase.
2021-22 Champions League Last 16: PSG vs Real Madrid
DF: This sentence is taken from the BBC match report and I thought it was interesting as it includes so much information about the PSG winning goal: first Mbappé receives the ball, then he beats the defenders and scores and then the goal leads to huge celebrations in the stadium. Let’s take a closer look at some of the language.
DF: The France or French striker refers of course to Kylian Mbappé who receives the ball from his team mate Neymar; and this assist comes from a backheel – remember this is a pass that a player can give by using the heel rather than the front of the boot in order to send the ball in the opposite direction and which causes the defence to be confused or wrong footed. Now, I thought this was called a tacon in Spanish as this is the word for heel but I wasn’t quite right and here’s Fran who lives in Málaga in Spain explaining how to say the word backheel in Spanish
Fran: Hey Damian, how’s it going? The right word for a backheel…es un taconazo. OK? Nearly, you got it nearly…very nearly right, taconazo is a backheel. OK, enjoy your weekend. Bye!
DF: Thanks a lot to Fran for explaining the word backheel in Spanish to us – taconazo – Damon how is this said in Japanese, do you know?
DB: Well, I think it is a version of English – backheel, but let’s see what my Japanese teammate, Makoto says. We can also hear from his wife, Tina, on how to say it in Hungarian.
Makoto: Hello Damian. Hope you are doing great. The right word for backheel in Japanese – A kakato de ushiru de keru (To kick the ball backward with your heel). But it’s a bit longer, so we normally say that ‘backheel’ as you say. Hope this helps and enjoy your weekend. And here’s Tina… so please say it in Magyar.
Tina: Hi Damian. I hope all is well. In Hungarian we say sarkazásA Take care, bye.
DB: Brilliant. Yes, I’ve heard ‘backheel‘, in Japanese pronunced baku heeru, or ‘heel pass’ a lot while playing in Japan. But I’ve never heard the Hungarian, so thanks Tina. It’d be great to hear how other languages say this phrase ‘backheel‘ – you can do this by dropping us a line at admin@languagecaster.com or by posting it onto our forum page where we have opened a new question on this topic.
Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster.com (in Hungarian)
DF: Brilliant stuff! Thanks a lot to tina, to Makoto and to Fran. OK, let’s return to that PSG-Real Madrid game and that goal. So, after receiving Neymar’s back-heeled pass, Mbappé runs between two Madrid defenders inside the penalty area (that’s the box) and then the report says that he slotted the ball through the keeper’s legs which of course means that he carefully placed the ball between the keeper’s legs. To slot home suggests accuracy – the player deliberately placed the ball, usually low, into the net. Of course, the goal was also scored in the 94th minute so this made the celebrations even bigger and the home crowd at the PSG stadium, that’s the Parc des Princes, went wild, they were sent wild by the wonderful Kylian Mbappé goal.
Contact
DB: Now we have received quite a lot of questions about football recently from lots of different football fans around the world – remember you can post a comment on the site, use the forum, send an email to us at admin@languagecaster.com or look for us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram which is where Alvaro asked about a special kind of kick off.
Kick off
DF: Well, t hanks a lot Alvaro for the question. Well, I wasn’t so sure about this because I don’t know if this kind of thing happens so much in English football but I have seen the phrase ‘honorary kick off‘ in some examples. We might also focus on the person taking the kick off and simply say ‘the guest of honour kicked off‘. I’d love to know if other listeners can help with this question – what do we call a guest who kicks off a game? I posted this on our forum so you can add an answer there or by dropping us a line at admin@languagecaster.com or below this post.
Stamp on
DB: Next up was a comment from Ivan, who is from Slovakia, and he asked about a phrase he read in an article from Sky Sports about Kieran Trippier’s foot injury while playing for Newcastle last weekend. Ivan wanted to know whether ‘got stamped on’ is usually used to describe a kind of foul when a player stamps on an opponent’s foot, or whether there is a different or more common term used.
DF: Thanks Ivan for the question. Yes, if a player stamps on another player then it means they have stepped on the opponent. We can also say a€˜to stand on someonea€™s foota€™ but this suggests more of an accident than stamping; the word a€˜stampa€™ suggests something more violent than a ‘step’ and of course it depends on whether the player did this accidentally or on purpose or deliberately. If a referee thinks a player has stamped on another player deliberately then they will receive a card (maybe a red one). The Newcastle manager Eddie Howe has said that Trippier was stamped on (by another player) and has used a€˜gota€™ instead of be/was a€“ so, a common way of using the passive form or passive voice and this means that something was done to the player (by someone else). Sometimes we might also hear the action described with the word a€˜studsa€™ (and these are on the bottom of the playera€™s boot and help the players to keep their balance on the pitch) but not usually as a verb. So, for example the playera€™s studs came down on the opponent’s foot.
DB: Now, Ivan also followed this up by sending us the translation in Slovak which is: Å¡lapák [ʃlapa:k ]. We’d love to hear of any other words and expressions to describe the phrases we’ve looked at on the show. Thanks again for the question Ivan.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Greek).
Forum
DB: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster.com and that message was in Greek 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 over 30 different languages but are always looking for more. Drop us a line with a short audio!
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.
DF: Yes Damon, 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. Now, we have had lots of really interesting comments and questions there recently including one from regular contributor Dwi who asked about the phrase ‘to stick the ball wide‘ which refers to a bad miss by a player.
Now, as we’ve mentioned earlier in the show, we have also posted a couple of questions up there this week about the expressions to do with a ‘stamp‘ and words to describe a backheel but we are also interested in what kind of language people use to describe the player who lies down behind the defensive wall when a free kick is being taken near the goal (You can see a picture of this on our post). I think I have heard the phrase draught excluder here in the UK – this is something people do to keep their rooms warm by placing something at the bottom of the door. But I was wondering what other ones, in any language, people have heard or used?
DB: Yeah, draught excluder is definitely a new phrase in football. I think I probably heard it two or three years ago for the first time. Language is always changing!
OK, that’s it for this short podcast in which we have looked back at some of the words and phrases from the last 16 of the Champions League, including, ‘slot home‘ and ‘backheel‘.
DF: OK, thanks everyone for listening and enjoy all the football this week – there’s more Champions League – and we’ll see you again soon with more football language. Bye bye.
DB: Ta-ra!