This Week: Playing for glory

Hello my name’s Jack and welcome to the weekly round-up called This Week on Premier Skills English.

In this week, we’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

If you are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify you can also visit the Premier Skills English website at britishcouncil.org/premierskillsenglish where you’ll be able to download the podcast.

On the Premier Skills English website, you can read the transcript and join the Premier Skills English community by completing a language task in the comments section. This will really help you remember the new words and phrases from the stories from the Premier League.

The words and phrases I am focusing on this week are: To host, opposition, rivals, conviction, confidence, to nurse an injury, to abandon and glory.

Listen out for these words and phrases in the headlines and stories.

After each story there will be a short language focus and then there will be a task for you to complete and then at the end of the podcast there will be a new football phrase.

But before that, I want to look at last week’s football phrase. If you didn’t hear it last time, here’s one more chance to guess now.

Last week, I chose another word that was suggested by Hsn from Turkey. Thanks again Hsn. This is an advanced word that’s used quite commonly in football English. This week, I will be happy if you can suggest the verb to ********* or the noun ************. The verb means to stop a passed ball before it gets to the target player. So a clever player might anticipate a pass and run to be able to get to the ball before the pass is completed. This is an ************.

Congratulations to Wilson2103 from Colombia, first again this time, Hayato from Japan, Hierarchy16, also from Japan, Vietnguyenngo from Viet Nam, Daniel_06 from Mexico, Isshin from Japan, Valeek from Iran, Welcome Valeek, I’m sorry for not welcoming you on your first week, Bicooz from Egypt - welcome to the website Bicooz, Taher Koshen from Somalia, Hermosillo Moreno from Mexico, Lobachyov_24 from Russia - another first time football phrase, Welcome Lobachyov, Goku from Japan, Mehmet Sisman from Turkey and a really special welcome back to Alex from Ukraine. We have really missed you on the site and with everything that is going on have been worried for you. I know that our connection through the website isn’t very personal, but when you and Liubomyr and Sabanoleg stopped posting comments, Rich and I really did worry about you guys. It’s great to have you back.

Anyhow, you all managed to work out that the words I was looking for were intercept and interception. Listen till the end of the podcast for a new football phrase.

And now ... Let’s get on with this week’s three football stories!

Arsenal fans are full of hope

Arsenal hosted Spurs in the North London derby on Saturday. Some had suggested that Arsenal would struggle in this top of the table clash, saying that Arsenal’s place leading the Premier League was down to the weakness of their opposition rather than the strength of their players. But that’s not what happened. The Gunners did have the home advantage and the fans certainly played their part, but Arteta’s team simply outplayed their rivals in all areas.

When Thomas Partey opened the scoring with a brilliant 22-yard curler, it was a statement about their confidence as well as their skill. Harry Kane equalised for Spurs after 31 minutes, which could have shaken their confidence, but they played on with conviction and were rewarded with goals from Gabriel Jesus and Granit Xhaka.

Final score: Arsenal 3 - Tottenham Hotspur 1

The words I want to talk about from this story are to host, opposition, rivals and conviction.

Normally a noun - a person who has guests. You should thank your hosts if you are invited for dinner. Some people are very good hosts and they look after their guests. The word can also be used as a verb and it means to provide the space or location for something to happen. So countries might host the Olympic games. Ukraine should host the Eurovision song contest this year as they were the winners last year, but due to the fact that they are unwilling hosts in other parts of their country, the UK is hosting the competition this year.

Opposition is a strange word. The verb to oppose means to be against something. If you oppose something, you might protest or speak against it. I think the opposite of oppose is to propose. The noun opposition usually means strong disagreement. So you might read that there is a lot of opposition to a government policy. For individual people who oppose something, we normally use the noun opponents, but for some reason, when we talk about an official or somehow formal group of opponents, we say the opposition. So in politics, activists might be opponents of a government policy but politicians from an opposing party are the opposition. In football, a player might face an opponent on the pitch, but when we talk about the team they are playing against, we say the opposition.

The noun rival in football often means the same as opposition. The word means a person or group who are in competition for the same thing. I think this is most commonly used to talk about people who are in competition for a long time. The best rivalries are long term. So this weekend, we were treated to a couple of derby matches between teams that have been in competition for almost as long as there has been a football association in England. So all the teams in the Premier League are in opposition with each other and they are all rivals to a point, but the best rivalries are between the clubs that have a long history and whose matches are called derbies.

The noun conviction in normal English means a strong belief. So you can have a personal conviction that something is the case or a deep conviction or a lifelong conviction. It comes from the same root as the verb convince which means to persuade someone that something is true. If you have a conviction, you are convinced that something is true. If you do something with conviction, you do it with confidence and as if you are certain that you are right. When Arsenal played with conviction, they played as if they believed that they were going to win.

Let’s move on to the next story.

Liverpool and Brighton in 6 goal thriller

Brighton’s brilliant Belgian winger Leandro Trossard scored the first hat-trick by a visiting player at Anfield since 2009 in what was one of the most exciting Premier League matches I’ve seen this season. From kick off, Brighton looked deadly. They played with confidence and pressed inside and through the midfield with inch-perfect passing that tore holes in Liverpool’s defence. Trossard scored his first after only four minutes. After 20 minutes when he scored his second, the reds looked like they were in real trouble.

Up front, Salah still looked like he was having a good time and almost grabbed a goal back. Minutes later he slipped through Brighton’s defence and slotted the ball through to Roberto Firmino who scored with a cool-headed chip over a sliding defender.

Firmino scored again after the break and then a Liverpool corner went wrong for Brighton’s centre-back Adam Webster when the ball bounced off his shoulder and into his own goal giving Liverpool the lead.

Towards the end of the match, Trossard was nursing an injury and looked like he might have to be subbed off. Fortunately, he made it back onto his feet and was ready and waiting when the cross came and drove the ball into the top right corner.

Final score: Liverpool 3 - Brighton and Hove Albion 3

The word and phrase I want to talk about from this story are confidence and to nurse an injury.

OK - confidence. So ... earlier, I spoke about conviction which is a very advanced noun and now, I’m talking about confidence which is a B2 noun so I should probably have done these the other way around. Confidence is the quality of being certain that you can do something. So you can say that a player has confidence in their abilities if they believe in themselves. So confidence means with faith or belief. The adjective is confident. So if you have confidence in yourself, you are confident. You can also be confident about other people or other ideas or projects and then you can say you have confidence in others. You might want to reassure someone that you believe in them so you could say: you have my full confidence.

The phrase to nurse an injury, means to rest or look after yourself so that you can get better. We use the verb nurse to mean to look after someone or something. This comes from the noun nurse which means a person who works in a hospital and cares for sick or old people, but who isn’t a doctor. So to nurse something sort of means to care for something.

Let’s move on to the last story.

Haaland and Foden humiliate United

Erling Haaland and Phil Foden both scored hat tricks against Manchester United at the Etihad on Sunday. Foden opened the scoring following a flurry of fast passes with a confident flick that de Gea only spotted as it whipped past him and into the net.

Haarland made it 2 with a powerful header that looked like it might have been cleared off the line only for VAR to confirm it was a goal. By half time, Haaland and Foden had both scored again and the score was 4-0. For some United fans, this was too much and they abandoned their team and left the stadium.

United, to their credit, never gave up. After 56 minutes, Antony scored a blinder of a goal from outside the area and pulled back some glory, even if the points were out of sight. Haarland and Foden responded by completing their hat tricks. Anthony Martial managed to connect with a header when a shot rebound from Ederson’s gloves and shortly afterwards scored again from the penalty spot, but it was already too late for the result to be in doubt.

Final score: Manchester City 6 - Manchester United 3

The words I want to talk about from this story are to abandon and glory.

I like the next verb, to abandon, because it is very dramatic. It means to leave someone or something, usually forever. So you might find an abandoned building. I think that the verb implies that the person or thing being left, being abandoned, is in some danger. When a ship is sinking, the captain might give the order to abandon ship. Sometimes you hear about baby animals that have been abandoned by their parents and need to be raised by hand. When some Manchester United fans left the Etihad Stadium at half time when their team was four goals down, they abandoned their team.

The last word I want to talk about today is glory. Glory is quite a difficult word to describe. It is the praise and admiration that you get from doing something great. If a footballer does something amazing, something that takes huge confidence and skill then that act will earn glory. You can’t give someone glory, a person doesn’t have glory, but they can do something that earns cheers and admiration from the crowd and they may enjoy the glory. In the dictionary, there are examples of players revelling in the glory of their achievements which means to enjoy the admiration of the crowd. You often see it when a player scores a goal, when they celebrate, they stand in front of the crowd and seem to drink in the cheers and admiration, they revel in the glory of their achievement.

OK. That’s 8 words or phrases today. The words and phrases from the stories were: To host, opposition, rivals, conviction, confidence, to nurse an injury, to abandon and glory.

Listen to the headlines one more time to hear these words and phrases in context.

Arsenal fans are full of hope

Arsenal hosted Spurs in the North London derby on Saturday. Some had suggested that Arsenal would struggle in this top of the table clash, saying that Arsenal’s place leading the Premier League was down to the weakness of their opposition rather than the strength of their players. But that’s not what happened. The Gunners did have the home advantage and the fans certainly played their part, but Arteta’s team simply outplayed their rivals in all areas.

When Thomas Partey opened the scoring with a brilliant 22-yard curler, it was a statement about their confidence as well as their skill. Harry Kane equalised for Spurs after 31 minutes, which could have shaken their confidence, but they played on with conviction and were rewarded with goals from Gabriel Jesus and Granit Xhaka.

Final score: Arsenal 3 - Tottenham Hotspur 1

Liverpool and Brighton in 6 goal thriller

Brighton’s brilliant Belgian winger Leandro Trossard scored the first hat-trick by a visiting player at Anfield since 2009 in what was one of the most exciting Premier League matches I’ve seen this season. From kick off, Brighton looked deadly. They played with confidence and pressed inside and through the midfield with inch-perfect passing that tore holes in Liverpool’s defence. Trossard scored his first after only four minutes. After 20 minutes when he scored his second, the reds looked like they were in real trouble.

Up front, Salah still looked like he was having a good time and almost grabbed a goal back. Minutes later he slipped through Brighton’s defence and slotted the ball through to Roberto Firmino who scored with a cool-headed chip over a sliding defender.

Firmino scored again after the break and then a Liverpool corner went wrong for Brighton’s centre-back Adam Webster when the ball bounced off his shoulder and into his own goal giving Liverpool the lead.

Towards the end of the match, Trossard was nursing an injury and looked like he might have to be subbed off. Fortunately, he made it back onto his feet and was ready and waiting when the cross came and drove the ball into the top right corner.

Final score: Liverpool 3 - Brighton and Hove Albion 3

Haaland and Foden humiliate United

Erling Haaland and Phil Foden both scored hat tricks against Manchester United at the Etihad on Sunday. Foden opened the scoring following a flurry of fast passes with a confident flick that de Gea only spotted as it whipped past him and into the net.

Haarland made it 2 with a powerful header that looked like it might have been cleared off the line only for VAR to confirm it was a goal. By half time, Haaland and Foden had both scored again and the score was 4-0. For some United fans, this was too much and they abandoned their team and left the stadium.

United, to their credit, never gave up. After 56 minutes, Antony scored a blinder of a goal from outside the area and pulled back some glory, even if the points were out of sight. Haarland and Foden responded by completing their hat tricks. Anthony Martial managed to connect with a header when a shot rebound from Ederson’s gloves and shortly afterwards scored again from the penalty spot, but it was already too late for the result to be in doubt.

Final score: Manchester City 6 - Manchester United 3

Language Challenge

Right, now it’s time for you to think about the language again.

Here are 8 sentences with gaps in them and you have to complete the gaps with the correct form of the words and phrases from this podcast.

Number 1. City wanted to destroy their ______ at the match on Sunday.

Number 2. The match was _________ at half time because of the storm.

Number 3. The striker knew that victory was out of reach but kept playing for the _____.

Number 4. As an Arsenal fan, I enjoyed the North London Derby. I just hope they are still playing as well in January when Spurs ____ Arsenal.

Number 5. It was a long shot, but struck with so much __________, the keeper didn’t stand a chance.

Number 6. After a tricky start at the club, he’s finally playing with __________ and looks more like the player we signed.

Number 7. The home fans welcomed the _________ with a mixture of polite applause and friendly booing.

Number 8. The captain did not even make the bench as he has been _______ __ ______ for the last two matches.

Leave your answers in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website and I will go through them next week.

Football phrase

Now it’s time for this week’s football phrase.

This week, I have chosen an anachronism which means a thing that belongs to the past. The word is the ********. This means the goal posts and it is derived from the material that the posts and crossbar used to be made from. It’s been about 40 years since any top flight club had goal posts made from this material but we still talk about hitting the ********.

If you know the answer, be sure to leave it in a comment on the page for this podcast on Premier Skills English.

Before I finish, here are the answers to last week’s language challenge.

Number 1: I don’t want to diminish United’s victory, but City’s defense was terrible.

Number 2: Rashford scored with a belter from outside the area.

Number 3: I’ll never forget my first match. I was taken to see Arsenal at Highbury by my grandpa at the tender age of seven.

Number 4: We need a new midfielder who is creative and improvisational so we can surprise our opponents.

Number 5: Following a spate of recent signings, Brazilian players have monopolised the midfield.

Number 6: The striker has secured his place as a regular starting player following a series of convincing performances.

Number 7: After being allowed space by the opposing defenders, the 23-year-old sent a tame effort towards goal which somehow slipped through the hands of the keeper.

Number 8: The striker looked relieved when he scored, marking the end of a frustrating barren spell.

That’s all I have time for today. Before I finish, I just wanted to say that I hope you found this podcast useful, and I hope all of you stay fit and healthy and safe.

Bye for now and enjoy your football.