On this week’s review section we salute the new champions of England, while Aston Villa fire their manager and Joey Barton also feature in our bad and ugly sections. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast and can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below. You can also find many more examples of football cliches here and our huge football glossary here. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.
Good
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Well done to Galatasaray who won the Turkish Süper Lig title, to Juventus who ended the Italian league campaign undefeated, to Málaga who qualified for the Champions League for the first time in the Spanish club’s history and to Dortmund who thrashed Bayern Munich to win the German Cup final and complete a remarkable double. But the main story in the football world this week involved Manchester City who won their first title in 44 years and their third overall in dramatic circumstances. With the Blues trailing 1-2 against lowly QPR in the 90th minute it looked as if City had blown it but they scored twice in 90 seconds to snatch the win that gave them the Premier League title. During the season they conceded the fewest amount of goals, scored more than anyone else, did the double over neighbours Manchester United, and in Yaya Toure, David Silva, Vincent Kompany, Sergio Aguero and Joe Hart they look as if they can go on to win many more titles in the future. Well done City.
Bad
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12 months after taking Birmingham City down to the Championship, Alex McLeish has been fired – by Birmingham’s city rivals: Aston Villa. McLeish was never really welcomed by the fans at Villa Park because of his past affiliations, though only four home wins all season and a style of defensive football did not really help him either.
Ugly
He’s back in our ugly section after a season of relatively good behaviour. Joey Barton was given a red card in his side’s defeat to QPR after elbowing Carlos Tevez. He then kicked out at Sergio Aguero, attempted to head butt Kompany, threatened to fight Manchester City substitute Balotelli and caused mayhem on the pitch – mayhem that may have caused his side to lose the game. He faces a lengthy ban and QPR bosses will be wondering whether or not to keep the player next season. Ugly indeed.
Vocabulary
- thrashed: Beat a team by a lot of goals
- trailing: Losing
- had blown it: Had thrown away their chances, had lost it
- to snatch the win: Won it at the death, right at the end
- conceded: Let in a goal
- to head butt: To attack someone with their head
- mayhem : Chaos, madness, confusion
- affiliations: Connections, links
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