This Week: Back on the scoresheet

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.

This week, I’m talking about two matches. When I watch the matches, I make notes about the language I hear in the commentary and it’s just so rich that I can’t help myself... There's just too much to talk about. Today, I’m going to talk about Leicester City hosting Brighton and Hove Albion and on Friday, I’ll publish another episode about Bournemouth’s match against Nottingham forest.

Before I start today’s story, I want to answer a couple of questions that were raised by Cezario Abrantes. The first question was about my use of the preposition past.

I said Grealish headed the ball past De Gea

I’m not sure if you are overthinking this use ... the adverb preposition past means in or to a position that is further than or after a particular point. I took that definition from the Cambridge dictionary online. I think that the football context might have confused this. Let me try another example. Can you imagine a western film? Two cowboys are facing each other for a shootout. Both cowboys draw their pistols and fire. The first cowboy misses his opponent and the bullet flies past his target. This is the same as my usage from the podcast. Grealish headed the ball past De Gea - the ball went into the goal which was a position further than the goalkeeper. I’m not sure that’s really what you were asking. Let me know if I’ve not made that clear. The second question was about the football English term a through ball. This is a forward pass that goes between the opposition’s defence. This was possible because Johnson had got himself into space away from his marker so he was able to run forward. I hope that makes sense. One of the problems of football English is there are so many cliches and expressions that use prepositions slightly differently to normal. In regular English, you could say that Surridge played the ball through Leicester’s defence. With football English, you can just say Surridge played the through ball. I hope that this makes sense.

Football phrase

Last week, there were three football phrases. I’m going to go through the answers to each of them now. But first, here’s one more chance to guess the first one.

The first football phrase last week was ***********. This is the verb form of the noun **********. It means to bring a player off to replace them with another player. If you are ***********, you are brought off and a ********** replaces you.

Congratulations to Robackpacker from Romania! You were the first to get the right answer last week and welcome to Premier Skills English. Congratulations to Vietnguyenngo from Vietnam, Denis2000 from Belarus, Fabs17 from Italy, Chen Meng Tso from Taiwan, you are very welcome Chen Meng Tso - thanks again for the question. Congratulations to Cezario Abrantes from Brazil, Isshin from Japan, Mehmet Sisman from Turkey and last but not least to Hasan from Turkey.

You all worked out that the word I was looking for was substitute or substituted.

Thanks for sharing your ideas about working in a team. It sounds like Isshin has had some positive team working experience. I think Cezario and Hasan have had a similar experience to me. When you’re in a good team, it can be really rewarding. But if you’re in a team and some members are not great or if the team leader doesn’t share the authority or delegate properly, it can be frustrating. Then, instead of sharing in the team’s success, it can feel like your own hard work is being stolen. I like your suggestion Hasan that drivers following the rules of the road is a form of team work. Even if you work independently, we are all in a team of one kind or another.

The second football phrase last week was ***-**-***. This phrase means that you are in competition with only one person. We also use this phrase in education to talk about activities that a teacher does with one learner. When I was teaching in Italy, I had a couple of ***-**-*** classes with university students. In football, it’s used when two players are competing with each other directly.

Congratulations to Denis2000 from Belarus, Cezario Abrantes from Brazil, Alex_from_Ukraine, Fabs17 from Italy, Chen Meng Tso from Taiwan, Hasan from Turkey, Vietnguyenngo from Vietnam and Robackpacker from Romania. You all managed to work out that the phrase I was looking for was one-on-one.

Now, I think my description wasn’t great for this phrase. Some of you guessed that I was looking for one-to-one. I spoke about teaching English classes with just one learner and these were more often called one-to-one classes. So ... what’s the difference? I think that there’s a slight difference. I think that in a one-to-one situation, the transaction, the service or information flow is one way. So for teachers or tutors or instructors, if they are providing a service for one student, that’s one-to-one. But where two people meet to talk or compete, they meet one-on-one; that is, if the information flow or activity happens in both directions. So I might say to a learner, we’ll meet one-on-one and I’ll teach you one-to-one. I probably wouldn’t say that because it sounds weird, but I think the language is OK. Let me know if that doesn’t make sense or if you come across any examples where this explanation doesn’t work and I can try to look into it more.

I will talk about the answer to the third football phrase of the week on Friday so if you haven’t guessed yet, there’s still a couple of days for you to try. Check out the football phrase on the North London Derby podcast. And there will be a new football phrase for you to try to work out at the end of this podcast.

But now it’s time for me to get on with this week’s first story. The words and phrases from the story that I want you to listen out for are: consistency, to have big boots to fill, poetry in motion, to lose your nerve, to hesitate, to pull the trigger and to hang on by your fingernails.

Barnes is back on the scoresheet

Brighton travelled to the King Power Stadium on Saturday to face Leicester City. Brighton have been playing brilliantly this season and Leicester have been struggling with consistency. The match promised excitement and it delivered.

Brighton were the first to get on the scoreboard. Kaoru Mitoma has big boots to fill following the departure of Leandro Trossard on the left wing. The Japanese player of the year looked confident of his place with a lightning sprint, then sweeping infield of Castagne, Mitoma dispatched a shot that was poetry in motion.

Harvey Barnes, who has been struggling with composure in front of goal, set up Leicester’s equaliser. He couldn’t see a line through to cross the ball so took a shot himself which was fired right at a Brighton defender. The ball fell neatly to Tielemans who took a shot which was also blocked. Finally, the ball fell for a third time to Marc Albrighton who slotted the ball past the Brighton keeper.

In the second half, Barnes put the homeside ahead. This was the midfielder’s first goal since the World Cup. He had been having a good run of goals before the break for the competition but seemed to have lost his nerve. Vardy made a great run and had to fire the ball back to Dewsbury-Hall who saw Harvey Barnes run into space, but then he hesitated, just for half a second. He couldn’t quite pull the trigger and when he did, his cross back to Vardy was deflected for a corner. When the corner was taken, the ball fell to Barnes who didn’t have time to think about it and smashed it into the goal from close range. Hopefully for Leicester this will help him regain his confidence and get back to scoring goals.

Brighton swarmed Leicester for the remainder of the match. The home side were hanging on by their fingernails when the pressure eventually proved too much. Estupinon played in a smart cross and Evan Ferguson, the 18-year-old Irish forward headed it past Danny Ward.

Final score: Leicester City 2 - Brighton and Hove Albion 2

The words and phrases from the story that I want to talk about are: consistency, to have big boots to fill, poetry in motion, to lose your nerve, to hesitate, to pull the trigger and to hang on by your fingernails.

I said that Leicester have been struggling with consistency. Consistency is the quality of always being the same, always performing in the same way or at the same level. So if a team is always good, you could say that they are consistently good. But if they are sometimes good and sometimes terrible, they have a problem with consistency. The adjective consistent is used in a similar way so you might hear someone say that their team can be brilliant but is not consistent.

The next bit of language I want to look at is the idiom; to have big boots to fill. This is quite a common idiom, though often the form is to have big shoes to fill. I think that we only say to have big boots to fill in the UK, though I’m not sure. Whether big boots or big shoes to fill, the meaning is the same. We use it to say that a new person in a job or group will have to be very good to be as good as the person who used to do their job. So if you start a new job, and the person who did the job before you was really good at the job, people might tell you that you have big boots to fill. In the story, I was talking about Kaoru Mitoma who is taking over from Leandro Trossard at Brighton. Trossard had an amazing start to the season so Mitoma will have to perform very well to be as good as Trossard.

Mitoma’s start in Trossard’s boots went well though as he scored a really beautiful goal. When someone performs a physical task that’s very beautiful or graceful, you may hear the phrase poetry in motion to describe it. I heard this phrase in the commentary I was watching for the match and thought it would be a nice phrase to talk about. It’s a bit cliched, but you can use it to describe the way someone does something, if they are very graceful.

We have looked at the phrase to lose your nerve in the past, but it is important for this story and I didn’t want to include it without speaking about it. If you lose your nerve, you suddenly become nervous and stop what you were doing. I think that you can only lose your nerve if you are doing something that takes nerve in the first place. So if you are planning to do something that’s a bit scary, you might lose your nerve when you try to actually do it. Something like bungee jumping or asking someone out are common examples of tasks that might cause someone to lose their nerve.

The next verb, to hesitate, is often the result of losing your nerve. It means to stop, to pause when you are doing something, usually because you are uncertain of what to do. When you are learning English, if you have to speak to someone, it is normal to hesitate when you are trying to think of what to say. More commonly, it’s caused by nervousness. So when my first son was born, I was so nervous when I was driving with him in the car, I would often hesitate at junctions and roundabouts to make extra sure it was safe before driving.

I really like the next phrase. To pull the trigger means to make a decision and act on something important. So if you are moving house, you might spend a long time looking for a new place to live and then when you are finally ready, you pull the trigger. The idiom comes from guns. Guns have triggers that you pull to fire the gun. So if you are pointing your gun at someone, you need to be certain that you are doing the right thing before you pull the trigger. So in the same way, to pull the trigger on something means to make a final decision, something you can’t undo.

The last phrase I want to talk about today is to hang on by your fingernails. This idiom is quite easy to understand if you understand the literal meaning. If you are falling off a building and all you have to keep you on the building are your fingernails, you will hang on with them. So you can imagine a climber on a cliff hanging on by their fingernails. If their fingernails fail, there is nothing to save them. So the idiom means to work hard to keep doing something to avoid a big problem or failure. I think that this is quite commonly used to talk about politicians who are involved in a scandal. Any minute, they could lose their job, but they hang on by their fingernails.

OK. That's seven words and phrases today. The words and phrases from the story were: consistency, to have big boots to fill, poetry in motion, to lose your nerve, to hesitate, to pull the trigger and to hang on by your fingernails.

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

Barnes is back on the scoresheet

Brighton travelled to the King Power Stadium on Saturday to face Leicester City. Brighton have been playing brilliantly this season and Leicester have been struggling with consistency. The match promised excitement and it delivered.

Brighton were the first to get on the scoreboard. Kaoru Mitoma has big boots to fill following the departure of Leandro Trossard on the left wing. The Japanese player of the year looked confident of his place with a lightning sprint, then sweeping infield of Castagne, Mitoma dispatched a shot that was poetry in motion.

Harvey Barnes, who has been struggling with composure in front of goal, set up Leicester’s equaliser. He couldn’t see a line through to cross the ball so took a shot himself which was fired right at a Brighton defender. The ball fell neatly to Tielemans who took a shot which was also blocked. Finally, the ball fell for a third time to Marc Albrighton who slotted the ball past the Brighton keeper.

In the second half, Barnes put the homeside ahead. This was the midfielder’s first goal since the World Cup. He had been having a good run of goals before the break for the competition but seemed to have lost his nerve. Vardy made a great run and had to fire the ball back to Dewsbury-Hall who saw Harvey Barnes run into space, but then he hesitated, just for half a second. He couldn’t quite pull the trigger and when he did, his cross back to Vardy was deflected for a corner. When the corner was taken, the ball fell to Barnes who didn’t have time to think about it and smashed it into the goal from close range. Hopefully for Leicester this will help him regain his confidence and get back to scoring goals.

Brighton swarmed Leicester for the remainder of the match. The home side were hanging on by their fingernails when the pressure eventually proved too much. Estupinon played in a smart cross and Evan Ferguson, the 18-year-old Irish forward headed it past Danny Ward.

Final score: Leicester City 2 - Brighton and Hove Albion 2

Language Challenge

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

Your challenge this week is to complete the gaps in the following sentences with the correct form of the words from the podcast. I have taken these examples directly from news websites and only edited them slightly to make them clearer.

Number 1. At half time, the manager looked shocked. When he got into the dressing room he _________, unsure of what to say

Number 2. The Toffees finally ______________ on Lampard after a 2-0 defeat to West Ham on Saturday, leaving them off the bottom of the table only on goal difference.

Number 3. After a string of losses, the manager was __________________ and it didn’t look like he’d be in the job for much longer.

Number 4. The football on show was the embodiment of ‘_______________’ – and unsurprisingly, Zinchenko was right at the heart of it.

Number 5. A drug dealer who was at court for sentencing _______________ and fled the building before his case was called on.

Number 6. The head coach told reporters that he is looking for more __________ from his team during this season’s campaign.

Number 7. I may have some ______________, but I’m truly excited to be taking over as manager here.

Leave your answers to the language challenge in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Task

Your task this week is to think about Harvey Barnes. Well, not just that. You see, I was really happy to see Barnes score. He’s made some mistakes in his last few matches that I think were down to him losing his nerve, to him losing his confidence and that affected his composure. This weekend, he’s going to travel over to Walsall to play against the EFL League Two club Walsall FC in the FA Cup and this should give him the chance to build on his success and really get his confidence back.

So your task this week is to think about a time when you or someone you know lost your nerve or had your confidence knocked. How did you get over it? Have you got over it? If you did, what advice would you give someone who has lost their nerve?

Share your ideas in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Football Phrase

Now it’s time for today’s football phrase.

Today’s football phrase is just a word. The word is *********. This describes a shot or a pass that hits or is lightly touched by another player just enough to change the direction that the ball is heading in. If a shot is *********, it’s almost bounced off someone or something, only instead of bouncing back towards the person who kicked it’s ********* and changes direction.

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

And that’s all I have time for today. I have written about another match so there will be a part two to this week’s podcast on Friday. As there were so many of them, I will put the answers to last week's language challenges in the comments on the Premier Skills English website.

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.