This Week: Football Phrasal Verbs 1

This Week: Football Phrasal Verbs 1 

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 women’s super league and phrasal verbs.

Jack: We’re going to look at three headlines from the weekend’s action and look at some phrasal verbs we use in those headlines.

Laura: Lots of learners have told us that they’d like some help with phrasal verbs so over the next few weeks we’re going to look at six different phrasal verbs in each episode of This Week.

Jack: We’ve called them phrasal verbs here but they are also called multi-word verbs. Multi-word verbs are verbs with one or two particles or prepositions.

Rich: There are three types of multi-word verbs: phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs and phrasal-prepositional verbs. Sometimes, the name ‘phrasal verb’ is used to refer to all three types.

Laura: We think it’s easier to call all three types phrasal verbs so that’s what we’re going to do.

Rich: We want you to use and practise these phrasal verbs by interacting with football 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: So ... this week we are looking at six phrasal verbs. The phrasal verbs we look at are: to break down, to put in, to take back, to link up, to end up and to get over.

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: City head to the top of Super League.

Laura: Manchester City left it late but finally broke down a strong Reading defence when Chloe Kelly scored an 87th-minute winner. Reading put in a great defensive performance but couldn’t stop City from moving to the top of the table.

Rich: That was City’s eleventh straight win in the Women’s Super League.

Jack: It’s interesting how we use the word straight in that sentence. It was City’s eleventh straight win. It means they have only won and not done anything differently. 

Laura: Yes, a team could be on a run of five straight wins, five straight defeats or even five straight draws.

Rich: Let’s look at some more language from our first headline. There are two phrasal verbs I want to look at: break down and put in.

Jack: Let’s start with to break down. It’s got a few meanings - the most common that you probably know already is connected to cars and machinery.

Laura: My car broke down on the way to work.

Rich: Oh no! What’s wrong with it?

Laura: I’m not really sure. It’s at the garage now. I hope it’s not too expensive to fix.

Jack: This is the most common meaning but we’ll focus on how it was used in the headline as break down has a different meaning here. Laura said City finally broke down a strong Reading defence.

Laura: In this sentence to break down means to destroy something or to make something disappear. City destroyed or broke Reading’s defence near the end of the match.

Rich: We often use the words resistance and opposition with break down when talking about a team that finally scores against a strong defence. 

Jack: We say things like the team finally broke down the opposition or the team finally broke down the opposition’s resistance.

Laura: We use this outside of football, too especially when we talk about feelings about something. A government or company might want to break down resistance or opposition to something.

Rich: The second phrasal verb we used in the headline was to put in. Let’s look at that now. 

Jack: Laura said Reading put in a great defensive performance.

Laura: Again put in has lots of meanings so we’re just going to look at one here. In the example, we were saying that Reading spent a lot of time and effort defending in the match.  

Rich: So to put in is often connected to effort. We can say things like I put in a 12 hour day at the office yesterday or I’m putting in a lot of work to improve my English.

Jack: It’s a phrase that is often used in football and is a bit of a cliche when a player who has worked hard is substituted. The commentator will often say ‘she’s a put a real shift in today’ which means that she has worked really hard.

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

Headline 2 

Laura: Kerr and Kirby star again for Chelsea.

Rich: Just 24 hours after being pushed into second place, Chelsea took back top spot with a 2-0 win against Aston Villa. Sam Kerr and Fran Kirby linked up for both goals with Kerr netting twice and Kirby providing the assists. 

Jack: Another win for Chelsea. They also have the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final to look forward to this week.

Laura: Yes, against Wolfsburg in Germany they are 2-1 up so it will be great to see if Chelsea can get through to the next round.

Rich: Let’s look at two more phrasal verbs from the headline. The first is to take back. I said that Chelsea took back top spot.

Jack: To take back in this example means to get possession of something again - to reclaim something that you had before.

Laura: Chelsea were in first place but then Manchester City moved to the top but then Chelsea took back top spot.

Jack: The other phrasal verb I want to look at is to link up. Rich said that Fran Kirby and Sam Kerr linked up for both goals.

Rich: To link up means to join and to work together. Fran Kirby and Sam Kerr worked together to score Chelsea’s goals. They link up really well and have created and scored lots of goals for Chelsea this season.

Laura: We can use it outside of football, too. Two separate companies might link up to offer customers something new, singers might link up from time to time to do songs together or different groups of people might link up for a demonstration or protest against something.

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

Headline 3

Rich: Arsenal win North London Derby.

Jack: Arsenal came out on top at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as they beat Spurs three-nil in a match that could have ended up with even more goals for the away team. Arsenal have got over their bad form from earlier in the season and recorded a fourth straight win with goals from Caitlin Foord, Vivianne Miedema and Katie McCabe.

Laura: Arsenal are chasing Manchester United hard for that third Champions League spot and it was good to see this match being played at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Rich: Yes, and Manchester United’s match was played at Old Trafford - the first-ever time the women’s team have played there. United beat West Ham 2-0.

Laura: Lauren James will go down in the record books as the first woman to score a goal in a league match at Old Trafford.

Jack: OK, we want to look at two more phrasal verbs we used in this headline. The first is to end up. I said that the match could have ended up with even more goals.

Laura: When we use the phrasal verb end up we are talking about how something finishes or ends. If a match ends up 2-2 that’s how the match finishes - it’s the final result.

Rich: It’s a useful phrasal verb which we can use in different ways. Have a listen to these examples:

Jack: We spent ages looking around for a nice restaurant and ended up in a little Italian next to the river. It was really nice.

Laura: I’m trying to use less plastic because a lot of it ends up in the sea and it’s awful for the environment.

Rich: He said he’d help but I ended up doing all the work myself.

Jack: The final phrasal verb I want to look at this week is to get over. We used it in the headline when I said Arsenal have got over their bad form earlier in the season.

Laura: To get over is used when something bad has happened and you’ve recovered from it.

Rich: You might need to get over an illness. You could say I’ve just got over a bad cold or the flu for example.

Jack: And it can also be used to describe recovering from problems at work or in your personal life. 

Laura: Arsenal weren’t playing very well earlier in the season but they’ve got over this and are now playing really well.

Rich: OK. We’ve looked at three stories and lots of vocabulary in our headlines. This week we looked at six phrasal verbs. The phrasal verbs we looked at were: to break down, to put in, to take back, to link up, to end up and to get over.

Jack: 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.

Headlines - Repeat
Prediction

Laura: It’s time for our football prediction. Last week Jack predicted a 3-0 win to Arsenal in the North London Derby and Arsenal won 3-0.

Jack: What a prediction! And what a result for Arsenal!

Rich: So Jack, that means that you get to choose the match for this week’s prediction. 

Jack: Yes, OK, well, I could go with Arsenal again because they’re playing Liverpool but I think I’m going to make a prediction for Leicester against Manchester City. I think Leicester could cause Manchester City some problems - they beat them 5-2 earlier in the season in a real shock so I’m going to go for another surprise. Final score: Leicester City 3-1 Manchester City.

Laura: I’m going to stick with Manchester City - they never lose. 2-0 to Manchester City.

Rich: That leaves me with the draw. One-all.

Jack: What do you think the score will be? Do you agree with me, Rich or Laura?

Laura: We want you to talk about all this week’s football 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.

Jack: We looked at six phrasal verbs in this week’s headlines and your language challenge is to use those phrasal verbs now.

Laura: We’re going to give you three sentences and you’ve got to decide which phrasal verb to use. You need to use one of the six we looked at earlier.  Can you guess the missing phrasal verb?

Rich: She ______ a real shift in the match today. She never stopped running.

Jack: She said that she never imagined that she’d ______ playing at Old Trafford.

Laura: They need to ______ their problems in defence if they want to move up in the league table.

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.

Jack: 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.

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

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.