International women’s World Cup qualifiers, huge surprise in Spain and a prison sentence for Premier League footballer all feature on this week’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly section of languagecaster’s podcast. Vocabulary support can be found for the words in bold at the foot of the post.
Good
Great results for England against Malta, 8-0, and Italy against Armenia, 8-0 also. What makes the scorelines even better is they were World Cup qualifiers, for Germany 2011. Yes, the Women’s World Cup qualifiers have been taking place since August in Europe as teams fight to get to the finals. There, 15 teams will try to be wrestle the crown away from current Champions, Germany.
Incredible result in the King’s Cup in Spain as third-tier side, Alcorcon, embarrass Real Madrid(See the goals here) 4-0. That was good for Alcorcon fans, neutrals and of course Barcelona fans who love to see their rivals lose. They were also happy with their side’s demolition of Zaragosa, 6-1 at the weekend, which allowed them to open up a three point gap at the top of La Liga.
Bad
A bad week for Manchester United and their manager Fergie as they lose 2-0 to their bitter rivals, Liverpool. It was a game in which they never really looked like winning and they missed a great opportunity to apply the coup de grace to Liverpool and end the Merseyside team’s season. Vidic picked up a red card, his third in a row against Liverpool, Fergie was again in the news criticising the ref, and three days later, in the Carling Cup, his side beat Barnsley from the Championship, but Gary Neville was red-carded, and their fans are accused of going on the rampage and damaging Barnsley’s stadium and attacking police. Bad for the team from Salford.
Bad news for two struggling Premier League clubs: Portsmouth and Hull City who are both in financial difficulties. Hull chairman Paul Duffen resigned this week as the northern club’s debts reached A£23 million – expect some more turmoil over the next couple of weeks at Hull. It has been non-stop turmoil at Portsmouth since the start of the season and now the south-coast club face a transfer ban as they still owe money to both arsenal and Chelsea from transfer deals. Seems a little harsh when you think that both those clubs have incurred far greater debts than Portsmouth.
Ugly
A very ugly story from England this week as Premier League star Marlon King, who is a Wigan player, was sentenced to 18 months in jail after being found guilty of breaking a woman’s nose in a nightclub. Wigan chairman Dave Whelan has sacked the player and it looks very unlikely that he will be playing top-flight football again in his career. Very ugly indeed.
Vocabulary
scorelines: Results
wrestle the crown away: To win the title from another team
current: Nowadays
third-tier side,: A team from the third Division (League 1 in England)
demolition: Heavily beaten, destruction
coup de grace: To finish off
Merseyside: The Liverpool area
third in a row: Three times consecutively
going on the rampage: A crazy attack
turmoil: Real problems
struggling: Not doing very well
incurred far greater debts: To be more in debt; to owe more money
sentenced to: To be sent to jail for a certain time
