This Week: Fortune and Frustration

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: ambitious, frustrated, fortune, to capitalise on something, consecutive and strategy.

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.

The phrase was **** ****.I This phrase means that the target in a football match, I’m taking care not to use a really obvious football word, the target is undefended. There is nobody between say the striker and the target. Sometimes, when a player is in this sort of situation, the pressure is too much and they lose their composure. But usually, a player will not miss if they are presented with an **** ****.

Congratulations to Wilson2103 from Colombia! First again, Wilson. Well done. Gustavo Fonseca from Peru, Cristobala from Chile. Greetings to you, too. Vietnguyenggo from Vietnam, HSN from Turkey – thanks for the football phrase recommendation. I’ll put it on the list. Taher Koshen from Somalia, Igor Rezende from Brazil – welcome to the podcast Igor, Hiracky16 from Japan, Bicooz from Egypt, thanks for the football phrase suggestions and you kind words about the podcast, Valeek from Iran, Renan from Brazil – weldone this week Renan, Lobachyov_24 from Russia, Tiago Delazari from Brazil, we’re glad to have you back, and Thitipat from Thailand. Welcome back Thitipat, I’ve not seen you here for a while.

Commiserations to Hermosillo Moreno from Mexico. I think you were over thinking it. All of your suggestions were good and way more advanced than the phrase I was looking for. Perhaps my clue made it more difficult. And finally welcome top Wujuxin from China. You didn’t get it right this week, but it’s great that you had a go.

Anyhow, most of you all managed to work out that the phrase I was looking for was open goal.

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!

VAR saves Arsenal at Elland Road

Arsenal travelled to Elland Road on Sunday looking to maintain their lead at the top of the table but Jesse Marsh’s Peacocks were not going to make it easy.

The match was stopped shortly after kick off because a power cut had taken out the VAR feeds and the goal line technology. When the power came back and the match restarted, Leeds pressed hard and were unlucky when Sinisterra went close within minutes.

The Gunners attacked and after 35 minutes Saka intercepted an ambitious pass and headed down to Odegaard who slotted the ball through for Saka to sprint onto and fire over the head of Meslier and into the top of the net.

In the second half, Leeds earned a penalty when Saliba stopped the ball with his arm … in the penalty area. Mark Bamford stepped up to take the kick. Now, Bamford had had a goal ruled out for a foul on Gabriel just after play restarted so probably felt like he deserved to score. However, he fired the ball just wide and let Arsenal off.

At the end of the game, Bamford was clearly frustrated and  pushed Gabriel over. Gabriel then kicked out with his boots from where he’d landed and caught the attention of the referee who awarded Leeds a penalty and showed Gabriel the red card. Arsenal were lucky that VAR had been restored because it gave the referee the chance to review the decision and he ultimately gave the free kick to Arsenal and changed the red to a yellow for Gabriel.

Final score: Leeds United 0 – Arsenal 1

The words I want to focus on from this story are ambitious and frustrated.

Normally, the adjective ambitious is used to describe a person who really really wants to succeed, to become rich and powerful. If someone wants to have the top job and own a massive house and drive a really expensive car, you could say that they are ambitious. However, it has another slightly more advanced meaning as well. You can use ambitious to describe a plan that will require a great deal of skill. It’s often used when people think that a plan will require more skill than the person carrying out the plan actually has. I am sometimes a bit ambitious and some of my plans are certainly ambitious. For example, I like DIY, fixing things around my house. My wife wanted to buy some shelves for a cupboard, but I told her no … I can build some for less money. My carpentry skills are not very good. I thought I could do it, but it turned out that the plan was a bit ambitious. I did make the shelves and they are OK, but they are not quite hope I planned because my skills were not up to the job. In the match, Rodrigo tried to switch the play with a long pass across the pitch. It was a good idea, but the pas would have had to be perfect. In the end, Saka got in there and intercepted the ball. The pass was ambitious. It doesn’t always mean that the plan is beyond the skill level of the person who is going to carry it out, just that it will require a lot of skill. If you want to use this phrase, if someone tells you that they have a plan and you think they may struggle, they may find it difficult to complete, you can raise an eyebrow and tell them: That’s ambitious.

The next word is frustrated. This also has two meanings. To frustrate someone means to stop them doing what they planned to do. A plan may be frustrated by an enemy, or by bad weather or by some other unforeseen event. The other meaning of frustrated is the feeling you get when something you are trying to do is frustrated. So if you are trying to do something difficult like building some shelves for a cupboard and it’s turning out to be more difficult than you had imagined and it’s not working out, you might start feeling annoyed. That feeling, for me is a very specific sort of anger. If you have an idea that you believe will really help everyone at your work, but nobody wants to try it, that can also make you feel frustrated. When I was a kid, I would get most frustrated playing video games. When there’s a level you just can’t get past, you can get so angry with a sillyt game. That feeling is frustration and you are feeling frustrated.

Let’s move on to the next story.

Fortune favours Spurs

When Spurs hosted Everton on Saturday in front of a packed stadium, they were the strongest side. They were 11 points ahead in the table and have been playing very well. But that’s not always the way things work out in football and they nearly didn’t for Spurs on Saturday.

At the start of the match, they got lucky when Demarai Gray fluffed his finish following an impressive run. The Toffees failed to capitalise on another big chance when Hojbjerg couldn’t control the ball letting it fall to Amadou Onana who couldn’t keep it down with just the keeper to beat.

The score was nil-nil at halftime.

When play reastarted, Spurs got a lucky break on the attack. Jordan Pickford couldn’t keep hold of the ball and let it spill into the box and path of Harry Kane. In his attempt to retrieve the ball, he clattered into the legs of the Harry Kane and conceded a penalty. Kane powered the ball from the spot into the bottom left corner, bending back the keeper’s fingers.

The goal that sealed the win for Spurs was also a little lucky. Leeds defence slipped leaving Hojbjerg in so much space that when the cross came through, he had time to settle on the ball and pick his spot. However, his shot took a helpful deflection off Iwobi which sent the ball into the very corner of the net and way beyond the outstretched arms of Jordan Pickford.

Final score: Tottenham Hotspur 2 – Everton 0

The words I want to focus on from this story are Fortune and to capitalise on something.

The word fortune has two common meanings. A fortune can be a large amount of money or valuable things. If a person has a fortune, they are very wealthy. Sometimes people talk about how a wealthy person made their fortune. In children’s stories, often the story starts with the hero or heroine setting of on an adventure to seek their fortune.

The other meaning is similar to luck or chance. We use the adverbs fortunately and unfortunately as synonyms for luckily and unluckily. So fortune is similar to luck. The difference is fortune is used when it has more significance – when it has a greater impact on your future. So if there were unusual circumstances around the way you met your wife or husband or partner, you might describe that as good fortune more than good luck. If you drop your phone and it doesn’t break, that’s good luck. If you bump into someone in a restaurant and they turn out to be looking for someone just like you to work at their company, that’s good fortune.

The verb to capitalise can mean to make the first letters of a word big, capital letters. In English, we normally capitalise the words north, south, east and west when they are areas of a country or in the name of a county, but we don’t capitalise them when they are directions. So the North of England, which is capitalised is south of Scotland, which is not. You might need to look at the transcript on

Premier Skills English for that to make sense. To capitalise also has a business English meaning and can mean to provide money to a business so that it can operate. But it’s also used in a phrasal verb. In fact, I think it’s more commonly used in a phrasal verb than in those other uses. The phrasal verb is to capitalise on something which means to get the benefit from an advantage. So in football, if a team has a player sent off, they will be at a disadvantage. Playing with an extra player is a pretty good advantage. If the team with the advantage does not win the match, you could say that they did not capitalise on having an extra player.

Let’s move on to the final story.

Liverpool beat Manchester City

There’s no need for a clever title. Manchester City losing this season is enough of a headline. That said, if they were going to lose anywhere, Anfield was probably going to be the place. It was a thrilling match. Manchester City have been playing with so much confidence with Haaland looking to score in his 11th consecutive match, they are deadly. However, that confidence might have been their Achilles heel. Virgil Vin Dijk and Joe Gomez mostly managed to defuse the deadly Norwegian and Allison blocked when they couldn’t. So despite commanding the majority of the possession, their constant pressure in Liverpool’s end left them light in their own defence.

Man City were playing a high risk strategy at Anfield against an in form Liverpool with Mohamed Salah. Twice, he got past their back three and ran at the goal. The first time, he was under pressure and he might have hesitated; just enough for Ederson to get a fingertip to his strike and send it wide. The second time, was something from the playground. The Liverpool keeper had just caught an overplayed de Bruyne free kick and could see Salah way down the field. He booted the ball straight down the middle. João Cancelo was there to keep Salah back, but he mistimed his kick and this meant that Salah could collect the ball and run at the goal once more. He wasn’t going to let Ederson get it again and in a careful and composed way, he chipped the keeper and got the goal with Allison getting the assist.

Final score: Liverpool 1 – Manchester City 0

The words I want to focus on from this story are consecutive and strategy.

The adjective consecutive describes events that follow one after another. Consecutive events are items in a sequence. So if you went to visit an old friend every Monday for six weeks in a row, you could say that you have visited your friend on consecutive Mondays. In the story, I said that Haaland was hoping to score a goal in his 11th consecutive match. That’s because in the 10 matches that came before he scored. He’s already scored 15 goals from 10 games. Last year, the golden boot was shared by Mohamed Salah and Song Heung-Min who each scored 23 goals. If he carries on scoring at this rate, he’ll have broken the Premier League record by February!

The noun strategy has two meanings. I think it often means a detailed plan for achieving success, usually in sport or business or war. So, football managers make plans involving formation and tactics. Tactics are things like set pieces or ways two players might attack together, combinations of moves that can be practised on the training ground. A manager’s strategy might be a combination of these things. On the day of the match, they might have to change their strategy if they think it’s not working. Manchester City were playing a high-risk strategy. They were playing with lots of attacking players and hoped to be able to keep Liverpool busy in their own end, but that strategy did not pay off and Mohamed Salah was able to capitalise on this and scored the winning goal.

OK. That’s 6 words and phrases today. The words and phrases from the stories were: ambitious, frustrated, fortune, to capitalise on something, consecutive and strategy.

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

VAR saves Arsenal at Elland Road

Arsenal travelled to Elland Road on Sunday looking to maintain their lead at the top of the table but Jesse Marsh’s Peacocks were not going to make it easy.

The match was stopped shortly after kick off because a power cut had taken out the VAR feeds and the goal line technology. When the power came back and the match restarted, Leeds pressed hard and were unlucky when Sinisterra went close within minutes.

The Gunners attacked and after 35 minutes Saka intercepted an ambitious pass and headed down to Odegaard who slotted the ball through for Saka to sprint onto and fire over the head of Meslier and into the top of the net.

In the second half, Leeds earned a penalty when Saliba stopped the ball with his arm … in the penalty area. Mark Bamford stepped up to take the kick. Now, Bamford had had a goal ruled out for a foul on Gabriel just after play restarted so probably felt like he deserved to score. However, he fired the ball just wide and let Arsenal off.

At the end of the game, Bamford was clearly frustrated and  pushed Gabriel over. Gabriel then kicked out with his boots from where he’d landed and caught the attention of the referee who awarded Leeds a penalty and showed Gabriel the red card. Arsenal were lucky that VAR had been restored because it gave the referee the chance to review the decision and he ultimately gave the free kick to Arsenal and changed the red to a yellow for Gabriel.

Final score: Leeds United 0 – Arsenal 1

Fortune favours Spurs

When Spurs hosted Everton on Saturday in front of a packed stadium, they were the strongest side. They were 11 points ahead in the table and have been playing very well. But that’s not always the way things work out in football and they nearly didn’t for Spurs on Saturday.

At the start of the match, they got lucky when Demarai Gray fluffed his finish following an impressive run. The Toffees failed to capitalise on another big chance when Hojbjerg couldn’t control the ball letting it fall to Amadou Onana who couldn’t keep it down with just the keeper to beat.

The score was nil-nil at halftime.

When play reastarted, Spurs got a lucky break on the attack. Jordan Pickford couldn’t keep hold of the ball and let it spill into the box and path of Harry Kane. In his attempt to retrieve the ball, he clattered into the legs of the Harry Kane and conceded a penalty. Kane powered the ball from the spot into the bottom left corner, bending back the keeper’s fingers.

The goal that sealed the win for Spurs was also a little lucky. Leeds defence slipped leaving Hojbjerg in so much space that when the cross came through, he had time to settle on the ball and pick his spot. However, his shot took a helpful deflection off Iwobi which sent the ball into the very corner of the net and way beyond the outstretched arms of Jordan Pickford.

Final score: Tottenham Hotspur 2 – Everton 0

Liverpool beat Manchester City

There’s no need for a clever title. Manchester City losing this season is enough of a headline. That said, if they were going to lose anywhere, Anfield was probably going to be the place. It was a thrilling match. Manchester City have been playing with so much confidence with Haaland looking to score in his 11th consecutive match, they are deadly. However, that confidence might have been their Achilles heel. Virgil Vin Dijk and Joe Gomez mostly managed to defuse the deadly Norwegian and Allison blocked when they couldn’t. So despite commanding the majority of the possession, their constant pressure in Liverpool’s end left them light in their own defence.

Man City were playing a high risk strategy at Anfield against an in form Liverpool with Mohamed Salah. Twice, he got past their back three and ran at the goal. The first time, he was under pressure and he might have hesitated; just enough for Ederson to get a fingertip to his strike and send it wide. The second time, was something from the playground. The Liverpool keeper had just caught an overplayed de Bruyne free kick and could see Salah way down the field. He booted the ball straight down the middle. João Cancelo was there to keep Salah back, but he mistimed his kick and this meant that Salah could collect the ball and run at the goal once more. He wasn’t going to let Ederson get it again and in a careful and composed way, he chipped the keeper and got the goal with Allison getting the assist.

Final score: Liverpool 1 – Manchester City 0

Language Challenge

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

Here are 6 sentences with gaps in them and you have to complete the gaps with the correct forms of the words and phrases from this podcast.

Number 1. When Arsenal beat Leeds this weekend, it was their fourth _______ win.

Number 2. I realise now that my plan was a bit ________. So I’m not that disappointed that it didn’t work out.

Number 3. Newcastle’s ________ changed dramatically when they were taken over by the new owners.

Number 4. He had the good _______ to train with some of the world’s top athletes.

Number 5. The young striker was feeling the pressure and you could see that he was _______ with his own performance.

Number 6. In this podcast, I want to __________ __ your love of football and hope that motivates you to learn English.

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 a phrase I used earlier that’s not strictly football English. The phrase is ******** **** which means a weak spot. The phrase comes from a Greek myth about a hero whose mother dipped him in the river Styx as an infant to make him invulnerable. However, where his mother held him, as she lowered him into the river, the magic waters could not touch so there was one spot on his body where he was vulnerable. In football English, you might hear about a common injury to a player’s ******** tendon.

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. He’s a good player, but the pressure is so great he loses composure in front of goal.

Number 2. He hopes that his team can inflict some damage on their rivals in the upcoming derby.

Number 3. Marcus Rashford has timed his comeback to perfection with the World Cup on the horizon

Number 4. It was a different type of performance from the team today, but we got off to a good start with an early penalty.

Number 5. They are experiencing their first wobble, but such spells of form are not unexpected

Number 6. When the manager was sacked, the striker took it as a sign that he should start looking for a new club.

Number 7. If AFC Bournemouth accept the latest takeover bid, they will become the 10th Premier League club with American owners.

Number 8. He’s a brilliant captain, a proper midfield general. He has a real tactical awareness and amazing technique.

Number 9. The team didn’t look too clever at the back but they were let off the hook when their striker missed that sitter.

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.