This Week: Making the most of it

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 we are looking at this week are: finding their feet, to dominate, to make the most of it, invigorated:a brace and a Boost in confidence

Listen out for these 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 week, here’s one more chance to guess now.

Last week’s football phrase was quite a tricky one. The phrase was **** ****. The phrase means playing a game in an honest and truthful way - always following the rules and treating everyone equally. Nobody should cheat or try to trick the referee. I think it’s really important because footballers are role models and **** **** on the pitch sets a good example for young people.

Congratulations to 258963 from Vietnam, Hsn from Turkey, Daniel 06 from Mexico, Mehmet Sisman from Turkey, Taha Gashout from Libya, Wsanta from Argentina and Faruk Arslan from Turkey. You all worked out that the phrase I was looking for was fair play.

OK, let’s get on with this week’s three football stories!

Gunners back into 4th

Arsenal’s young squad is finding their feet. With 5 wins in a row, the Gunners are growing in confidence to the delight of their fans. Against Leicester, they played with style with Martin Ødegaard and Thomas Partey dominating the midfield. Partey opened the scoring after 11 minutes and Lacazette sealed the win in the second half from the penalty spot. By the end of the game, the fans were cheering the team with cries of ‘ole!’ after every one-touch pass. Will their form hold when they host Liverpool tomorrow?

The word and phrase I want to talk about from this story are to find their feet and to dominate.

If someone is finding their feet, they are getting used to a new situation and becoming confident, generally they are performing better. If you start a new job, it might take you a little while to find your feet. A new manager might need a few games to find his or her feet when taking over at a football club. It’s a bit of a strange expression because it implies that when a person is in a new situation, they might not know where their feet are. That would certainly affect their performance, especially for a footballer. Arsenal has a young squad and they are still learning to play together so collectively, they are finding their feet, much to the delight of their fans.

To dominate means to have complete control over a place or a person. Another definition describes to dominate as to be the most important or powerful person or thing at an event. I said that the Arsenal midfielders dominated the midfield. This means they were in control in the midfield and that they were the most important players in the midfield. In a normal sense, to dominate is not always a positive thing. If someone dominates meetings at work then they don’t work well with others and don’t let other people speak. But in football, it’s usually a good thing - as long as the players being dominated are on the opposing team.

Let’s move on to the next story.

Chelsea are making the most of it

Chelsea is for sale and is currently operating under the terms of a special licence which means they can’t offer any new contracts. However, this licence does not prevent them from scoring goals or winning games. They hosted an invigorated Newcastle on Saturday who put up an almost unbreakable defence. I say almost unbreakable because after dominating possession and almost 600 passes, in the 89th minute Kai Havertz found the back of the net.

The word and phrase I want to talk about from this story are to make the most of it and invigorated.

To make the most of it means to take full advantage of a situation, usually because you know it’s not going to last long. Chelsea are facing an uncertain future. They need to find a buyer for the club and until they do, they can’t sign new contracts so the players who will go out of contract will not be able to sign again. However, these troubles are not having an impact on the players or manager and the team is playing brilliantly. They know that there may be troubles ahead so they are taking full advantage of their squad and the strength of their team while they can. They are making the most of it. You can also make the make the most of something. So in the UK, especially at this time of year, if it’s sunny, I tell my kids to go outside and play. They really have to make the most of the sunshine when, well, when it’s sunny.

The other word I wanted to look at was invigorated. I like this word. The word vigor is the root of this adjective. Vigor means strength or enthusiasm. It’s often collocated with youthful. If you think of someone doing something with vigor, you imagine someone young and strong and enthusiastic. The noun is not very common, but the adjective vigorous and adverb vigorously are quite common. I think the most common collocation is to shake something vigorously. If you are making a milkshake from a powder, you might have to shake the bottle vigorously to get the milkshake to mix. To invigorate means to give someone strength or make them feel energetic and enthusiastic. If you swim in the sea and it’s cold, it makes you feel awake, alert and energetic. It is invigorating. Newcastle United didn’t have a great first half of the season, but they got some new players in the January transfer window and they have been playing like a new team, full of strength and invigorated.

Let’s move on to the final story.

Watford wins after a long wait

The Watford fans that made the trip to Southampton were finally rewarded with a first half brace from Colombian forward Cucho Hernandez. The Saints got a goal back, but it wasn’t enough. This result gave the Hornets their first big celebration since November. While I am sure Roy Hodgson would like to take advantage of this boost in confidence, his team has a 20 day wait before they travel to Liverpool.

The word and phrase I want to talk about from this story are a brace and a boost in confidence.

We spoke about brace before. I say we, that was when Rich was still making these podcasts with me. The word brace has a really interesting etymology, the history of the word and how it came to be used in football English. So today, a brace means two of something. It comes from the French word for arms. The arm protectors that warriors of old wore were called bracers. In the Lord of the Rings films, the character Aragorn wears Boromir’s bracers after Boromir is killed. So brace came to be used for things that are held together and so now the word has a similar meaning to support or hold tight. We call the straps that you wear over your shoulders to hold your trousers up braces. Traditionally, game birds, that is birds that are killed for food by hunters were tied together in pairs and were called a brace of pheasants or a brace of ducks. In this way, the word developed the meaning two of things that were shot. And that’s how brace made its way into football English. Because footballers shoot the ball at the goal, if they score two goals, that’s a brace of goals.

The last phrase I want to look at is a boost in confidence. The noun boost means an increase, usually a rapid increase. If you play racing video games, there are often ways to boost your speed. I like this word because it makes me think of spaceships. The rockets that power a spaceship are called boosters. I love watching the footage of the SpaceX boosters landing. Anyhow, a boost is a sudden increase in something, it doesn’t have to be from a rocket. The full phrase I’m looking at is a boost in confidence. So confidence is how you feel about plans and how strongly you believe they will work. In general, it means having a strong belief in your own ability to succeed. I am confident about my own abilities and most of the time I’m quite confident about Arsenal’s chances of a top four finish. Watford have not had a very good season and hadn’t won a game since November. Before their trip to Southanmpton, I don’t think that anyone in the team or in the stands were feeling very confident that they would win. However, winning the match will increase the team confidence; it will be a boost in confidence.

OK - that’s today’s vocabulary. The words and phrases from the stories were: finding their feet, to dominate, to make the most of it, invigorated:a brace and a Boost in confidence

Listen to the headlines again to hear these words and phrases in context.

Gunners back into 4th

Arsenal’s young squad is finding their feet. With 5 wins in a row, the Gunners are growing in confidence to the delight of their fans. Against Leicester, they played with style with Martin Ødegaard and Thomas Partey dominating the midfield. Partey opened the scoring after 11 minutes and Lacazette sealed the win in the second half from the penalty spot. By the end of the game, the fans were cheering the team with cries of ‘ole!’ after every one-touch pass. Will their form hold when they host Liverpool tomorrow?

Chelsea are making the most of it

Chelsea is for sale and is currently operating under the terms of a special licence which means they can’t offer any new contracts. However, this licence does not prevent them from scoring goals or winning games. They hosted an invigorated Newcastle on Saturday who put up an almost unbreakable defence. I say almost unbreakable because after dominating possession and almost 600 passes, in the 89th minute Kai Havertz found the back of the net.

Watford wins after a long wait

The Watford fans that made the trip to Southampton were finally rewarded with a first half brace from Colombian forward Cucho Hernandez. The Saints got a goal back, but it wasn’t enough. This result gave the Hornets their first big celebration since November. While I am sure Roy Hodgson would like to take advantage of this boost in confidence, his team has a 20 day wait before they travel to Liverpool.

Language Challenge

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

Here are seven sentences with gaps in them and you have to complete the gaps with the words and phrases from this podcast.

Number 1. The weather is lovely, we should go out and ____________.
Number 2: The award gave him a ____________.
Number 3: He was away for a long time, so it will take him a while to ____________ again.
Number 4. Doing some strenuous exercise in the morning before work always ____________ me.
Number 5. Dubai skyline is ____________by the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.
Number 6: They shot a ____________of grouse this afternoon.

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

Football phrase

Now it’s time for this week’s football phrase. This phrase will be the same in this podcast and the podcast on Friday so I will announce the answer and the usernames of people who have got it right next Monday.

This week’s football phrase is ******* *******. This can be a verb or a noun and it describes an offensive response to an opponent’s attempt to score. Some teams play well on the ******* *******. They let their opponents come forward and stretch their defence and midfield and when the team make a mistake or the ball is won, the team surges forward to make the most of the space between and behind the opponents attackers. This worked well for Spurs against Man City, but not so well against Man Utd.

That’s all I have time for today. Before I finish, I just wanted to say that I hope you found this lesson useful, and I hope all of you stay fit and healthy.

Bye for now and enjoy your football.