This Week: Football Phrasal Verbs 5

This Week: Football Phrasal Verbs 5

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

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

Rich: If you want to listen and read at the same time we have a transcript of this podcast on the Premier Skills English website.

Jack: This week we focus on Manchester City winning the League Cup, Chelsea in the Champions League and promotion for Watford. 

Rich: We’re going to look at three headlines from the weekend’s action and look at six phrasal verbs we use in those headlines.

Jack: We want you to use and practise these phrasal verbs by interacting with football fans from around the world in our comments section.

Rich: You can find all our latest content on the Premier Skills English homepage or the Premier Skills-British Council Facebook page. 

Jack: The phrasal verbs we are looking at this week are: to go after, to follow up, to keep out, to find out, to go up and to build on.

Rich: Remember that we’ll also have a language challenge for you to have a go at later in the show so you need to be ready for that.

Headline 1

Jack: City win first trophy of the season.

Rich: Manchester City beat Tottenham 1-0 at Wembley in front of eight thousand fans to win the League Cup for the fourth time in a row. It’s City’s first trophy this season as they go after a historic treble. They could follow this win up by claiming the Premier League title next weekend. 

Jack: A great result for City and more disappointment for Tottenham.

Rich: It’s like City have made this trophy their own - they’ve won it for four consecutive seasons now.

Jack: Yes, it’s very impressive and it could be the start of something special - this week they are going after the Premier League title and more success in the Champions League.

Rich: You’ve just used this week’s first phrasal verb there - to go after. City are going after more trophies. In the headline, we said City are going after a historic treble.

Jack: To go after something means to try to get something. City are trying to get their hands on three trophies this season - they are going after a treble.

Rich: What else can we go after?

Jack: Maybe we could go after a job that we really want or a company goes after more customers because they want to make more money.

Rich: Go after can also mean to try to catch someone and stop them. Go after him he’s taken my bag or go after her and tell her you love her.

Jack: The other phrasal verb I want to look at from the first headline is to follow up. To follow something up means to add something else to what you have recently done.

Rich: Manchester City have just won a trophy and they want to follow this up by winning two more trophies - they want to add two more trophies to the one they’ve already won.

Jack: So, we can follow something up and we can also follow up on something. It’s the police’s job to follow up on information they receive from the public. 

Rich: Here to follow up on means to find out additional information about something. You might want to follow up on an email you have received about work and arrange a meeting for example. Let’s move on to our second headline.

Headline 2 

Rich: Chelsea face tough battle in Champions League.

Jack: Chelsea lost 2-1 in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich. The hosts took the lead in the first half but Chelsea equalised through Melanie Leupolz. Chelsea couldn’t keep Bayern out in the second half but we don’t have long to find out who will win the tie with the second leg this Sunday.

Rich: It’s a big week for Chelsea - both the women’s and men’s teams in Champions League action.

Jack: I think a narrow defeat isn’t a bad result and Chelsea will be confident they can turn it around at the weekend. I think the men’s team wouldn’t be too disappointed with a similar result at Real Madrid on Tuesday.

Rich: Yes, it’s difficult to keep teams out at this level with the attacking players they’ve got.

Jack: That’s the first phrasal verb I want to look at from our second headline: to keep out.

Rich: To keep something or someone out means to stop something from entering a specific place. In the headline, we said that Chelsea couldn’t keep Bayern out.

Jack: This means that Chelsea couldn’t stop Bayern from scoring a goal. They couldn’t keep the ball out of their goal.

Rich: More generally we might see the phrasal verb keep out on signs in the street and on buildings. It means do not enter because this area is private property.

Jack: The other phrasal verb I want to look at is to find out which means to get more information about something. In the headline, we said that we will find out who wins between Chelsea and Bayern on Sunday.

Rich: That’s when the two play the second leg of their Champions League match - we’ll discover or find out the winner on Sunday.

Jack: You used the word discover there but we have to be careful because find out is about getting more information. You can find out or discover more vocabulary connected to football on our website, and we can say that Christopher Colombus discovered America but we can’t say that Christopher Colombus found out America. 

Rich: Let’s move on to our third and final headline.

Headline 3

Jack: Watford win promotion back to the Premier League.

Rich: Watford secured promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt with a win against Millwall on Saturday. The Hornets will be joined by Norwich City who went up last weekend. Both teams found a winning formula this season and will want to build on this in the Premier League.

Jack: Well done to Watford and Norwich for bouncing back to the Premier League at the first attempt. I know that Luibomyr from Ukraine, one of our long-time listeners will be very happy that Watford have gone up.

Rich: To go up - that’s our first phrasal verb from our last headline. When we talk about football we use this phrasal verb to mean earn promotion to a higher division.

Jack: Watford have gone up - they’ve been promoted - from the Championship to the Premier League.

Rich: It’s a very useful phrasal verb. The most common meaning of to go up is to increase and we can use it to talk about things like prices and temperatures.

Jack: Petrol prices are going up all the time. Global temperatures are going up. We should really use less petrol.

Rich: Our final phrasal verb this week is to build on. We said in the headline that Watford and Norwich will want to build on this season’s success in the Premier League next season.

Jack: To build on is a phrasal verb which means to use something that you have done which is good or successful to achieve more.

Rich: Watford have had a great season and have won lots of matches. They want to build on this and continue to win next season - at a higher level.

Jack: We often use the phrasal verb to build on when we have made a good start to something. A team might want to build on a good start to the season or a business builds on the good reputation it has to get bigger and become more successful.

Rich: OK, we’ve looked at three stories and six phrasal verbs in our headlines. The phrasal verbs we’ve looked at were: to go after, to follow up, to keep out, to find out, to go up and to build on.

Jack: Listen to the headlines again to hear these words and phrases in context and don’t forget to look at the website for the transcript if you want to check your understanding of this vocabulary.

Headlines - Repeat

Prediction

Rich: It’s time for our football prediction. Last week we both predicted that Manchester City would win the League Cup and they did although the scoreline was closer than what we thought.

Jack: Yes, but City definitely deserved to win. As your prediction was closer Rich you can make this week’s prediction. Which match are you going to take a look at?

Rich: There is no question what the big match is this weekend; it’s Manchester United against Liverpool. This is always one of the biggest matches of the season but this weekend it could also decide the Premier League title. If Manchester City win on Saturday, City will be Premier League Champions if Liverpool beat United on Sunday. Liverpool still need the points in their battle for the top four so will be up for this one and I don’t think the fans will mind if United lose their chance to win the title this weekend. Final score: Manchester United 1-2 Liverpool.

Jack: United will want to beat Liverpool as always and they are in better form. I think United will win 2-1.

Rich: Do you think Manchester City will be crowned Premier League Champions this weekend? Do you agree with me or Jack?

Jack: We want you to talk about all this week’s football on the Premier Skills English website.

Language Challenge

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

Jack: We’ve looked at six phrasal verbs in this week’s headlines and your language challenge is to use those phrasal verbs now.

Rich: We’re going to give you three sentences and you’ve got to decide which phrasal verb to use. You need to use one of the six we looked at earlier.  Can you guess the missing phrasal verb?

Jack: It can be tough for defences to _________ attacking sides like Manchester City or Real Madrid.

Rich: Are City going to ________ their League Cup win by winning another trophy this weekend?

Jack: We’ll _______ soon all the teams which are going up to the Premier League and the teams that are going down.

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

Jack: Or write your answers on Apple Podcasts or on Youtube if that’s where you listen to us. Just write the answers in the comments and say hi.

Rich: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope all of you stay fit and healthy.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football.