In this week’s football review we congratulate Iceland, are puzzled at the demise of the Dutch and wonder what happened with the Malaysian fans. To help with understanding you can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below.[print_link] | Subscribe: The Good, the Bad and the UglyThis week’s football review – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Iceland, Holland and Malaysian Fans
Good
Congratulations to England, Austria, the Czech Republic and Iceland for making it through to the European Championship finals taking place in France next summer. Iceland will be making their major tournament debut which is an amazing achievement for a country with only 330.000 inhabitants – the smallest population of a country to have ever qualified for a European finals.
Bad
Just over a year ago the Dutch finished third in the World Cup but after two successive defeats in their group they now face the prospect of not making it to France next summer. They have already lost one manager, Guus Hiddink, but current boss Danny Blind is also under huge pressure after losses against Iceland and Turkey and it looks like the Dutch may not be playing in France next summer.
Ugly
There were ugly scenes at Malaysia’s World Cup qualifier against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday as the home fans showed their displeasure of their team by throwing flares on to the pitch, causing the referee to abandon the game. It has been a tough week for Malaysian football after a 10-0 thrashing by the UAE a few days earlier – an ugly start to their World Cup qualifying campaign.
Vocabulary
making it through to: Qualify
inhabitants: The amount of people who live in a place
two successive defeats: Two defeats in a row
face the prospect: Their future is …
losses: Defeats
flares: Similar to fireworks
thrashing: Heavy defeat
