In this football language post we look at a newspaper headline, ‘Heartbreak‘ from the Guardian newspaper which is all about the 2023 Women’s World Cup final. You can see more newspaper headlines here and don’t forget we have hundreds more explanations of football language in our football glossary. If you have questions or comments about this or any other phrase then email us at: admin@languagecaster.com.
Newspaper Headlines: Heartbreak
This newspaper headline is from the Guardian newspaper’s report on the 2023 Women’s World Cup final between England and winners Spain. The main headline is just the single word ‘Heartbreak‘ which refers to the feeling of sadness that the England women’s side – the Lionesses – had after losing to Spain in the final. In football reporting it also suggests that the losing team has come very close to winning but has just failed to do so – in this case England lost by just one goal.
Most of the UK-based newspapers focused on the English defeat rather than the Spanish victory though the Guardian does mention the Spanish win in the sub-heading and also includes an image of a happy Spanish player celebrating alongside the heartbroken England captain Millie Bright. Indeed, it was Bright in her interview after the final who said the team were heartbroken which is another reason why this heading might have been used.
There is more information about the game in the sub-heading: ‘Lionesses fall at final hurdle as Carmona strike wins Women’s World Cup for Spain‘. Here the report uses the nickname of the English women’s team (Lionesses) and the phrase ‘to fall at the final hurdle‘ which means that they only had one more game to win but didn’t manage to do so and that they fell short. I don’t think this phrase is meant as a criticism of the team but rather tries to show how close they were to winning the trophy – they did well but didn’t quite make it all the way. This headline also mentions the goalscorer Olga Carmona and her winning goal (‘strike‘) which gave Spain their first ever Women’s World Cup title
Related Vocabulary
- Women’s World Cup Language Review Quiz
- 2019 Women’s World Cup posts
- 2023 Women’s World Cup in Numbers
- 2023 Women’s World Cup Preview
Learn English Through Football Podcast: A show for football fans to improve their English language skills
