This Week: The Stay at Home Cup

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 hope you are all staying well whether you are staying home or still going to work.

Rich: With no Premier League football at the moment we’ve changed the format of This Week a little. We’ve looked high and low for three news stories that we want to share with you.

Jack: This week, we’re concentrating on what people are doing instead of watching live football. 

Rich: We have chosen these stories because they are topical but also so we can focus on some interesting bits of vocabulary that we think are useful to learn.

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

Rich: 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: Don’t forget that we also have our weekly Premier Skills English Podcast that is released every Friday. Every week we help you with some different vocabulary or an aspect of grammar.

Jack: Our latest podcast is called Learning Vocabulary: COVID Kindness. Rich is doing some voluntary work in his neighbourhood and we focus on vocabulary connected to helping others. You can find the full lesson on the Premier Skills English homepage.

Rich: This week, after each headline, we will have a little discussion and look at some vocabulary. The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: a tense encounter, to set up, to blow your chances, never-say-die, ewe and to kid someone.

Jack: We also have another fitness challenge and language challenge for you to have a go at.

Headline 1

Jack: Rashford scores for Rashford and against Rashford.

Rich: Raheem Sterling got the winning goal in a tense encounter between Borussia Dortmund and ex-Manchester City winger, Jadon Sancho and Manchester Utd’s Marcus Rashford. Rashford smashed a header home for Rashford before Rashford equalised for Sancho. The game was won by Sancho when Rashford set up Raheem Sterling to score.

Jack: This is all a bit confusing, Rich. Rashford scores against Rashford?

Rich: Haha! Yes, I know. It’s part of the stay at home cup competition played on FIFA. The English FA have set up this competition online between England players. All the matches are streamed live on YouTube and Twitter.

Jack: E-sports are massive and lots of people are turning to them during the lockdown - to play and to watch. Another big competition is starting this week, the Stay and Play Cup. Twenty of Europe’s biggest clubs are taking part including Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham.

Rich: Let’s look at a couple of the words and phrases we used in the headline. We described the match on FIFA as a tense encounter.

Jack: An encounter is a meeting between two people or groups of people. We often talk about a chance encounter when we meet someone without arranging a meeting. We might talk about a close encounter when a situation could have been dangerous - I had a close encounter with a bad driver for example.

Rich: Encounter is also used to describe a sports match between two specific teams or players. 

Jack: If we describe something as tense we are saying that it is not relaxing and everyone involved is nervous. Matches between local rivals are often tense encounters.

Rich: The other word we want to look at in this headline is to set up. 

Jack: This is a phrasal verb and it means to make the pass that creates a chance to score a goal.

Rich: In the headline, I said Rashford set up Raheem Sterling to score.

Jack: Let’s move on to headline two.

Headline 2

Jack: Liverpool beat Milan to win Champions League.

Rich: Liverpool beat AC Milan to win the Champions League in a stunning comeback. It looked like the Reds had blown their chances of a fifth European title when Paulo Maldini and two Hernan Crespo goals gave the Italians what looked like an insurmountable 3-0 lead. However, Liverpool’s never-say-die spirit brought them level in the second half through Steven Gerrard, Vladimir Smicer and Xabi Alonso. The match went to penalties and it was Liverpool who came out on top when Jerzy Dudek saved Andrei Shevchenko’s spot-kick.

Jack: I’m confused again, Rich. This match happened fifteen years ago.

Rich: Yes, I know but what a game! With no live football, fans are sharing and watching repeats of their favourite matches - this is mine.

Jack: Ah, OK - mine would have to be Arsenal’s win at Anfield that won them the league title all those years ago.

Rich: Mmm … let’s look at a couple of phrases we used in that headline. The first is to blow your chances. In the headline, I said it looked like the Reds had blown their chances of a fifth European title.

Jack: This phrase means to fail to take advantage of an opportunity you have. It looked like Liverpool were going to miss the chance to win the European Cup. 

Rich: We can use it about football and outside of football.

Jack: I blew my chances of a promotion at work when I called my boss a big piece of cheese.

Rich: Really?

Jack: No, not really. Just an example.

Rich: Another phrase we used was never-say-die. We spoke about Liverpool’s never-say-die spirit which allowed them to come back and win.

Jack: The idiom never say die is used to tell someone to never give up and always remain hopeful.

Rich: A person or a team might have a never-say-die spirit, attitude or approach to life or a game. It means they will never give up and always keep trying.

Jack: Now, let’s move on to headline three.

Headline 3

Jack: Ewe have to be kidding.

Rich: With no live football to watch, people have been turning their attention to other forms of entertainment. This might include Netflix, live-streamed Yoga and English classes or even a good book to read but for others this has meant Ewe Tube - live streams from farms in the northern hemisphere where spring has started and you can watch live lamb cams of new-born lambs and kids.

Jack: Really? Ewe Tube is that a thing? You’re going to have to explain that headline. Ewe have to be kidding.

Rich: Yeah, sorry. A ewe is the word for a female sheep and it’s spelt E-W-E but it’s pronounced in the same way as YOU as in you and me.

Jack: And a kid?

Rich: A kid is the name we give to a baby goat so the headline is you have got to be kidding. To kid someone also means to play a joke on someone. I’m only kidding or I’m only joking means to not worry because it’s only a joke.

Jack: And are you kidding? Are people really watching lamb cams and Ewe Tube?

Rich: I don’t think Ewe Tube really exists but people are really watching lamb cams from farms. I think people who are in their homes all day want to connect with nature and new-born lambs and kids are so cute! 

Jack: OK, we’ve looked at three stories that are in the news and six bits of vocabulary. The words we’ve looked at are: a tense encounter, to set up, to blow your chances, never-say-die, ewe and to kid someone.

Rich:  Have a listen to the headlines again and see if you understand the vocabulary we’ve looked at. 

Headlines (repeat) 

Jack: Rashford scores for Rashford and against Rashford.

Rich: Raheem Sterling got the winning goal in a tense encounter between Borussia Dortmund and ex-Manchester City winger, Jadon Sancho and Manchester Utd’s Marcus Rashford. Rashford smashed a header home for Rashford before Rashford equalised for Sancho. The game was won by Sancho when Rashford set up Raheem Sterling to score.

Jack: Liverpool beat Milan to win Champions League.

Rich: Liverpool beat AC Milan to win the Champions League in a stunning comeback. It looked like the Reds had blown their chances of a fifth European title when Paulo Maldini and two Hernan Crespo goals gave the Italians what looked like an insurmountable 3-0 lead. However, Liverpool’s never-say-die spirit brought them level in the second half through Steven Gerrard, Vladimir Smicer and Xabi Alonso. The match went to penalties and it was Liverpool who came out on top when Jerzy Dudek saved Andrei Shevchenko’s spot-kick.

Jack: Ewe have to be kidding.

Rich: With no live football to watch, people have been turning their attention to other forms of entertainment. This might include Netflix, live-streamed Yoga and English classes or even a good book to read but for others this has meant Ewe Tube - live streams from farms in the northern hemisphere where spring has started and you can watch live lamb cams of new-born lambs and kids.

TASK - Fitness Challenge

Jack: Each week we’re trying to set you a fitness challenge. We’ve given you PE challenges and shoe challenges in previous weeks but this week we’re going to give you a Premier League challenge.

Rich: The challenge comes from Brighton & Hove Albion and involves press-ups, lunges, squats and loads more.

Jack: Have you really done this, Rich? It looks really hard.

Rich: At the beginning of the video the fitness coach says if you feel any discomfort in any of the exercises, please stop and focus on the ones that you can do.

Jack: So, how many of the exercises did you do?

Rich: Well, put it this way - I felt quite a bit of discomfort!

Jack: We’ll put a link to the video from the performance team at Brighton and you can have a go yourselves. Let us know if you give it a go in the comments section.

Language Challenge

Rich: To finish up the show we’ve got a quick language challenge for you which is connected to this week’s vocabulary.

Jack: We want you to listen to three sentences and tell us the word that should go in each gap. Because we were talking about farms and animals all the words you need are connected to that topic.

Rich: I can’t wait to see big crowds f________ to Premier League stadiums once again. The first letter is f.

Jack: We want you to do the fitness challenge. Don’t ______ out! The first letter of this animal is c.

Rich: This week’s language challenge will have you f _______ for hours! The first letter is f.

Jack: That’s really difficult this week. We want you to write the correct answers on the Premier Skills English website where we have some more questions and activities connected to this week’s show for you.

Rich: Or write your answer on Apple Podcasts if that’s where you listen to us. We want you to use the correct word. Just write the answers in the review section and say hi.

Jack: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope that all of you stay fit and healthy and we’ll all be back watching Premier League football very soon.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.