Matchweek 34: Long-range strike

Introduction  

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

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

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

Rich: If you listen to us on Spotify or 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: Let’s start with our headlines!

Headlines

Jack: Capital gains for City.

Rich: Manchester City got a 3-1 win away in London as they beat Crystal Palace 3-1. Raheem Sterling scored two superb goals before a late Luke Milivojivic strike made it a nervy end to the game for City. However, those nerves were calmed in injury time when Gabriel Jesus made it three and sent City back to the top of the Premier League.

Jack: Salah stunner sees off Chelsea.

Rich: Liverpool replaced City at the top just two hours later with a 2-0 win against Chelsea. After an even first-half, Liverpool scored twice in two minutes at the start of the second. Sadio Mane scored from close-range after good work from Jordan Henderson and Mohamed Salah scored a with a spectacular long-range strike. Liverpool are two points clear at the top of the Premier League.

Jack: Champions League race as close as ever.

Rich: That defeat for Chelsea and wins for Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United means that there are only three points between the four teams with five matches left to play. The fight for European qualification is going down to the wire.

Jack: I don’t think the title or European qualification will be decided until the final day of the season.

Rich: Me neither and it can even change after that if an English club wins the Champions League or Europa League.

Jack: I read about that the other day. It’s very complicated.

Vocabulary alert!

Jack: In our vocabulary alert, we look at some football English that we used in the headlines.

Rich:  Our six words and phrases this week are: strike, a nervy end, even, close-range, long-range, and qualification.

Jack: Jack: Let’s start with the word strike. This word can be used as a noun or a verb. 

Rich: We can strike the ball which means to hit the ball or more often to shoot the ball. Here ‘strike’ is a verb. 

Jack: Or we can describe a shot as a great strike or fantastic strike. Here ‘strike’ is a noun. 

Rich: This meaning of ‘strike’ is also used more generally to mean to hit something or an attack of some kind.

Jack: The words ‘close-range’ and ‘long-range’ are common words to describe the distance a shot is hit from or a goal is scored.

Rich: ‘Close-range’ means near the goal usually one or maybe two meters away from the goal.

Jack: ‘Long-range’ means far away from the goal usually outside of the penalty area. 

Rich: These words can also be used more generally to describe how near something is to an object. They are often used to describe shooting with guns.

Jack: The next phrase is ‘a nervy end’. This phrase describes the end of a match; the last five minutes or so when one team is leading but the other team is attacking a lot. You can also say ‘a nervy finish’.

Rich: The next word is ‘even’. When we describe a match as ‘even’ we are saying that the match is balanced; that both sides are playing to the same level or standard.

Jack: We said that the first half between Liverpool and Chelsea was ‘even’. There wasn’t much to choose between the two teams.

Rich: The final word is ‘qualification’. This is a noun that in a football sense means reaching a high enough level to play at a higher level of competition.

Jack: At this time of the season you hear a lot of talk about European qualification; which team will qualify for next season’s Champions League etc.

Rich: OK, so there are our six words and phrases. Listen to this part of the podcast again if you are not sure how to use them.

Jack: The words and phrases are: strike, a nervy end, even, close-range, long-range, and qualification.

Football Awards

Jack: Right, every week, we give out three Matchweek awards. 

Rich: The awards are Player of the Week, Team of the Week and Goal of the Week.

Jack: In the comments section, you need to tell us if you agree with our choices.

Rich: Let’s start with Player of the Week. There were some big performances in Matchweek 34.

Jack: Mohamed Salah was back in form for Liverpool, Lucas Moura scored a hat-trick for Spurs and Paul Pogba put away two penalties for Manchester United.

Rich: But our Player of the Week is Raheem Sterling. He scored another two brilliant goals for City and he must be a contender for Premier League Player of the season.

Jack: The next award is for Team of the Week. There were great wins for both Manchester clubs, Spurs, Arsenal, Newcastle, Burnley, Southampton and Fulham.

Rich: But our team of the Week is Bournemouth. They won 5-0 away at Brighton. After the match, the Brighton manager said it could have been more than five!

Jack: Finally our Goal of the Week. There were some wonderful goals this weekend. Raheem Sterling’s first for City, all of Lucas Moura’s goals for Tottenham were good but we’re going for Mohamed Salah’s long-range goal for Liverpool.

Rich: What a strike that was!

Matchweek Prediction 

Jack: Every week, Rich predicts the result of one Premier League match and we want you to make your prediction, too.

Rich: Make your predictions on the Premier Skills English website. You get one point if you predict the right result and three points if you predict the right score.

Jack: What’s the big match this weekend?

Rich: The big matches keep coming and this weekend could see some big changes in the title race and the race for the Champions League. On Saturday, Manchester City face Tottenham for the third time in two weeks after their two Champions League matches. Normally, I think City would be too strong for Spurs at home but when teams play each other a lot the matches often become more even. This is what I think will happen here. I think it will finish one all which will open the door for Liverpool. Final score: Manchester City 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur.

Jack: I think your prediction is more in hope than expectation. I’m going for a 2-0 win to City.

Rich: Right, that’s all we have time for. I hope you have enjoyed this football round-up. Join the discussion at the bottom of the page on the Premier Skills English website. 

Jack: If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, don’t forget to leave us a review. We’d love to hear from you.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.