This Week: Cup Shocks

This Week: Cup Shocks

Laura: Hello my name’s Laura and welcome to our weekly round-up section called ‘This Week’ on Premier Skills English. 

Jack: Hi there. I’m Jack. We’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

Rich: My name’s Rich. If you want to listen and read at the same time we have a transcript of this podcast on the Premier Skills English website.

Laura: This week we focus on the third round of the FA Cup which was played last weekend.

Jack: We’re going to look at three headlines from the weekend’s FA Cup action and look at words and phrases connected to cup football. 

Rich: We want you to use and practise these words and phrases by interacting with Premier League fans from around the world in our comments section.

Laura: If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, you can leave your comments in the review section. We do read all the reviews and would love to hear from you.

Jack: You can find all our latest content on the Premier Skills English homepage or the Premier Skills-British Council Facebook page. 

Rich: The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: underdogs, giant-killing, the romance of the cup, to get through, a banana skin, cupset, the draw and to be in the hat for the next round.

Laura: Later on we’ll also have a language challenge for you to have a go at so you need to be ready for that.

Headline 1

Jack: Premier League teams stunned by underdogs.

Laura: The FA Cup third round always provides a shock or two and this season was no different. There was a huge upset at Blackpool where the third division club beat Premier League West Brom on penalties. However, the biggest giant-killing was at Crawley Town where the fourth division team crushed Premier League Leeds United by three goals to nil.

Rich: The romance of the cup is still alive.

Jack: The romance of the cup?

Rich: It’s a phrase or cliche that is used a lot when the big Premier League clubs play much smaller sides in the FA Cup. 

Laura: Why is it romantic?

Rich: I suppose the idea of small teams with few resources playing and sometimes beating teams with more resources is romantic. Many fans look at the FA Cup in an emotional way - people love the idea of the underdog winning.

Jack: We described Crawley Town and Blackpool as underdogs.

Laura: An underdog in a sporting competition is a competitor or team that nobody thinks will win. 

Rich: Very few people gave Crawley or Blackpool a chance of beating their Premier League opponents so Crawley and Blackpool were described as underdogs.

Jack: You get underdogs in the Premier League, too. If Sheffield United or Fulham are playing Manchester United or Liverpool they can be described as underdogs.

Laura: But it’s only in the cup where you get giant killers or giant killings. 

Rich: We described Crawley’s win against Leeds as a giant-killing. Crawley were the giant killers.

Jack: A giant-killing is when a smaller team from a lower division beats a much bigger team. The bigger team are giants so when the smaller team wins, they are described as giant-killers.

Laura: I think this phrase might come from the story Jack and the Beanstalk.

Jack: Where I … I mean Jack kills a giant.

Rich: Maybe. You might also see an FA Cup match like this being described as a match between David and Goliath. David and Goliath is a religious story about a young man David who beats a giant, Goliath in combat.

Laura: The story is used to describe underdog situations, contests and sports matches.

Jack: Let’s move on to our second headline.

Headline 2

Laura: Big guns avoid potential banana skins.

Rich: Most Premier League teams avoided the possibility of a cupset to progress to the fourth round of the FA Cup. Tottenham won 5-0 at Marine from the eighth division, while Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United all won against lower-division opposition. It was more difficult for Fulham and Everton who needed extra time while Brighton and Burnley got through on penalties.

Jack: Some tough matches for the Premier League teams, but most got through to the next round. To get through is a phrasal verb - we said Brighton and Burnley needed penalties to get through to the next round.

Laura: In this example, get through means to progress to the next stage of a competition.

Jack: Rich said that the big teams got through and there weren’t too many cupsets. What’s a cupset?

Rich: It’s a funny word and a word that I’m hearing more and more. It’s a combination of two words: cup and upset. 

Laura: The most common meaning of upset is an adjective or a verb when it means to be sad or to make someone sad but here it has a different meaning.

Jack: Yes, an upset can describe a result when the team or player that is not expected to win - wins. Those Crawley and Blackpool matches we spoke about earlier can be described as upsets.

Rich: And they can also be described as cupsets because they were upsets that happened in a cup competition. An upset in the cup is a cupset.

Jack: Laura mentioned banana skins in the headline. What were you talking about there, Laura?

Laura: I said most teams avoided potential banana skins. Banana skins are very slippery obstacles. If you step on a banana skin you might fall over. 

Rich: Like in cartoons when you see a character falling over.

Laura: Yes, a banana skin is something you might slip up on. To slip up has a non-literal meaning. It means to make a mistake, usually because you aren’t paying attention.  Tottenham’s match against Marine from the eighth division was a potential banana skin.

Jack: They could have slipped up?

Laura: Yes - if they hadn’t taken the match seriously and had lost to Marine, it would have been very embarrassing. A banana skin describes something that could potentially cause problems or embarrassment. 

Rich: It is embarrassing for a big team to lose to a smaller team so most Premier League teams will be happy that they avoided any potential banana skins.

Laura: Let’s move on to our final headline.

Headline 3

Rich: Who’s in the hat for the next round?

Jack: The draw for the fourth and fifth rounds of the FA Cup will be held later today - Monday the 11th of January. There are fifteen Premier League teams in the hat for the next round and they will be joined by seventeen lower division teams. The lowest team left in the hat is Chorley from the sixth division who will be hoping for a match against a Premier League team and the chance to be a giant-killer. 

Laura: The FA Cup draw is always very exciting. There are no seedings so any team can play against each other.

Rich: Seeding is the process in a cup draw which stops specific teams playing against each other. 

Jack: The seeds are usually the stronger teams. 

Laura: You mentioned the draw for the next round. The most common use of draw in football is when scores finish level in a match. They drew one all or it finished in a one-one draw, but it has another meaning.

Rich: A draw is what happens in cup competitions to decide which teams will play which at the next stage. It’s a bit like a lottery with balls in a bag or a big box and they are chosen at random to produce a set of matches.

Jack: Or maybe a hat?

Laura: Yes, I think a hat was used in the past that’s why we have the idiom to be in the hat for the next round.

Rich: Fifteen Premier League teams are in the hat for the next round.

Jack: OK. We’ve looked at three stories and lots of vocabulary in our headlines. The words and phrases we’ve looked at were: underdogs, giant-killing, the romance of the cup, to get through, a banana skin, cupset, the draw and to be in the hat for the next round.

Laura: Listen to the headlines again to hear these words and phrases in context and don’t forget to look at the website for the transcript if you want to check your understanding of this vocabulary.

Headline 1

Jack: Premier League teams stunned by underdogs.

Laura: The FA Cup third round always provides a shock or two and this season was no different. There was a huge upset at Blackpool where the third division club beat Premier League West Brom on penalties. However, the biggest giant-killing was at Crawley Town where the fourth division team crushed Premier League Leeds United by three goals to nil.

Headline 2 

Laura: Big guns avoid potential banana skins.

Rich: Most Premier League teams avoided the possibility of a cupset to progress to the fourth round of the FA Cup. Tottenham won 5-0 at Marine from the eighth division, while Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United all won against lower-division opposition. It was more difficult Fulham and Everton who needed extra time and Brighton and Burnley got through on penalties.

Headline 3

Rich: Who’s in the hat for the next round?

Jack: The draw for the fourth and fifth rounds of the FA Cup will be held later today - Monday the 11th of January. There are fifteen Premier League teams in the hat and they will be joined by seventeen lower division teams. The lowest team left in the hat is Chorley from the sixth division who will be hoping for a match against a Premier League team and the chance to be a giant-killer. 

Prediction

Laura: We’re back to the Premier League this week and there are lots of fixtures with many matches in midweek as well as a full set of fixtures this weekend.

Rich: And it won’t be a surprise to you that the match we want to focus on is the one between the current top two in the Premier League: Liverpool and Manchester United.

Jack: It’s a huge match on Sunday and Manchester United might be top of the table by the time they play at Anfield.

Laura: That’s right. United play their game in hand on Tuesday at Burnley. If they win that one they will go into the match three points clear of Liverpool at the top.

Jack: I don’t think anyone would have predicted this a few weeks ago. United are on a fantastic run and are in great form. What’s going to happen, Rich?

Rich: You’re quite right. Manchester United are playing really well and have quietly moved to the top of the table while Liverpool have been finding matches a little more difficult than usual - not that difficult though as they are still at the top. I think United are in a slightly false position -  I don’t think they are going to win the Premier League and I think this match will be a step too far at the moment. Final score: Liverpool 2-1 Manchester United.

Laura: I think United have a great chance against Liverpool’s defence. I think it’ll finish in an away win.

Jack: What do you think the score will be? We want all of you to make your predictions for this match and all this week’s fixtures on the Premier Skills English website.

Language Challenge

Rich: To finish up the show we’ve got a quick language challenge connected to this week’s vocabulary.

Laura: Earlier we spoke about Cup draws and we used the cliche to be in the hat for the next round. We’re going to give you three more sentences which include phrases with items of clothing. 

Jack: We want you to write the item of clothing in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Rich: When did Theirry Henry hang up his _______. About ten years ago, wasn’t it?

Laura: She’s so lazy. She needs to pull her _______ up and work harder to get the ball back.

Jack: Sergio Aguero has scored more _______ tricks than any other Premier League player.

Rich: We want you to write the answers on the Premier Skills English website where we have some more questions and activities connected to this week’s show.

Laura: Or write your answer on Apple Podcasts if that’s where you listen to us. Just write the answers in the review section and say hi.

Jack: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope that all of you stay fit and healthy.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.