Unlike certain Premier League managers, we offer congratulations to the winning teams in England, Spain and Italy’s domestic leagues, as well as the UEFA Cup winners, in this week’s good, the bad and the ugly section of languagecaster’s football podcast. Click on the links below to find out more on all of these stories. Explanations of key vocabulary (in bold) can be found at the foot of the page.
The Good
Jose Mourinho, Sir Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola were all celebrating league title wins on Saturday night as Inter in Italy, Manchester United in England and Barcelona in Spain were crowned champions of their respective countries. This was Guardiola’s first win as a manager but he still has some way to go before emulating his winning-colleagues, with Mourinho now having won titles in three different countries, while Ferguson has just picked up his 11th Premier League title.
Good also for Shaktar Donetsk as they win the UEFA Cup after extra time. The Ukranian team overcame German side Bremen thanks to a goalkeeping error by Tim Wiese. After a solid display in normal time, the unlucky goalie conceded a soft goal which handed the trophy to the Ukranians. Hats off to Shaktar particularly as they become the first Ukranian team to win a major European trophy.
The Bad
We’ve talked about champions, but it is bad for the teams at the bottom of the league tables. And last weekend it was very bad for West Bromwich Albion and Tony Mowbery their manager as they were relegated to the second tier in England. They have been rightly applauded for their nice, passing style, but that wasn’t enough to keep the midlands side up.
They are not relegated but Velez Sarsfield in Argentina’s top league have just lost their unbeaten streak of 13 games – unlucky for some – and their top position. Gimnasia de la Plata beat them comfortably 3-1 allowing Lanus to claim the top spot. Bad for the team from western Buenos Aires.
The Ugly
Jens Lehmann’s attack on the integrity of the Bundesliga referees was pretty ugly. He claimed that Stuttgart would have already won the championship had the referees been fair this season. He also commneted that he has never seen Wolfsburg receive a bad refereeing decision against them. His comments put pressure on the referee for the upcoming game against Bayern Munich, saying he was hoping for a good refereeing performance. Could be candidate for spoilt loser of the year.
A challenger for that title could be Rafa Benitez, who refused to congratulate Alex Ferguson on Manchester United’s title win. He did congratulate the team but not the manager. Graceless behaviour.
Vocabulary
Here are some of the words and phrases from the good, the bad and the ugly section from this week’s show. You can download the podcast here
were crowned: Became champions, received the title
emulating: To be as good as someone
solid display: A good defensive performance, safe
hats of to: congratulations to, well done
conceded: gave away, let something happen
applauded: congratulated, admired
unbeaten streak: a run of games with no defeats, no losses
integrity: honesty, honour, impartiality
spoilt: to behave childishly, to behave in a bad way
graceless: lacking grace, thoughtless, unrefined, not polite
