Subscribe: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
On this week’s review section we congratulate Barcelona, Bayern, Chelsea and Real Madrid, laugh at sour grapes and wonder at a pair of fighting Wolves. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast and can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below.
Good
It was a good week for the four clubs who made it through the quarter-finals of the Champions League to set up some mouth-watering ties in the semis. Chelsea overcame Benfica, Barcelona defeated Milan, while there were comfortable victories for Bayern and Real Madrid. Intriguingly, both semi-finals involve teams with strong and often controversial histories against each other.
Bad
One former Barcelona player who was not so happy this week was Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic who lambasted the refereeing performance of match official Bjorn Kuipers after he awarded two penalties to Barcelona. Despite the Swede’s obvious ability and his amazing consecutive league title wins he has yet to prove himself in Europe and yet again he, and his side, failed which may be the source of Ibra’s sour grapes.
Ugly
Things are going from bad to worse for Premier League strugglers Wolves as their recent defeat against Bolton left them six points from safety. During the game two of the Wolves’ players – goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey and defender Roger Johnson – squared up to each other in a rather angry fashion. Though their manager Terry Connor claimed that this outburst was simply footballers demonstrating some passion but this story does suggest that all is not well at Wolves.
Vocabulary
mouth-watering: Looking forward to something in a big way
Chelsea overcame Benfica: Chelsea beat / defeated Benfica
Intriguingly: Really interestingly
lambasted: Attacked
sour grapes: A sore loser
strugglers: Team that is not doing so well
squared up to each other: Started to fight
this outburst: This attack
