Podcast 42 - Goalscorers

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Jack: Hi everyone. I’m Jack and every week we talk about football and help you with your English.

Rich: This week, we’re going to talk about the race for this season’s golden boot, the latest news from the Premier League and the language focus is on how to link sentences together and the special linking words we use.

Jack: And later, we have another vote for you to take part in and Rich will make another Premier League prediction. He actually got the correct score and result last week! I suppose every dog has its day!

Rich: Thanks Jack! This proverb or saying means that everybody has some success at some point in their life, even if they are usually very unlucky or have a very low status. So, I suppose you are making fun of my usually bad predictions?

Jack: Yes, I am a bit - I hope you don’t mind. This saying is over 400 years old and was first made popular by William Shakespeare, in Hamlet, one of his most famous plays.

Rich: Do you know that Shakespeare talked about football in two of his other plays; King Lear and The Comedy of Errors?

Jack: No, I didn’t.

Rich: Yeah, in King Lear, one of the characters insults someone by calling them a base football player - which is like calling someone a chav.

Jack: Ha ha - OK, that’s a tough one to explain. A chav is a negative word used to describe young people who are very confident and sometimes aggressive and who celebrate their lack of education.

Rich: Yes - they often wear sports clothes or designer labels and hang out in groups on street corners.

Jack: I think that you might have to do an image search on google to get an idea. Back in the 17th century, if you were playing football, you might be called a chav, but it was a very different game. It was very dangerous, there were no rules and people could even be killed. We spoke about Medieval Football back in podcast 22.

Rich: I know. Ball games were banned in Shakespeare’s time and you could go to prison if you played football. Crazy! But, maybe the referee would have fewer problems on the pitch, if he could send the players to prison!

Jack: Last week we spoke about charity and we asked you about charity events that take place in your country. Kwesimanifest from Ghana said that players from his national team sometimes play charity matches and all the money that is raised goes to help local children and orphans. And Aragorn1986 from Montenegro spoke about a charity basketball match to help raise money for children with cancer. RuslanJon from Uzbekistan said that there are similar events to Sport Relief in his country that involve sports people and people from the world of entertainment.

Rich: HakanUslu1881, from Turkey, said that Chelsea together with Fenerbache and Beskitas, two Turkish teams, raised money for people from Soma where there was a big mining disaster in 2014. Many of you also mentioned specific players that have their own charites or help raise money for different good causes.

Jack: Kop HG from South Korea mentioned the ex-Man Utd player Ji-Sung Park who runs his own charity for people in South East Asia. AssemJuve from UAE told us that Steven Gerrard has his own charity, Elghoul from Algeria said that Majid Bougherra helps people in Algeria and Alex from Ukraine says that Andriy Shevchenko helps school children in Ukraine.

Rich: In last week’s podcast we also asked you: If you could start your own charity who would you raise money for. This question asked you to use conditional sentences in your comments and it was good to see a lot of you using this type of sentence in the comments section. Well done!

Jack: Remember, we ask you to use the new language we present in the podcast in the comments section every week. Don’t forget to have a go, and if you want us to correct your language, just write ‘correct me’ at the start of your message.

Rich: What’s been happening in the Premier League this week, Jack?

Jack: There were only a few matches in the Premier League this weekend because a lot of the matches were postponed which means to change the time of an event until a later date. Matches are sometimes postponed because of bad weather, but the matches this week were postponed because of fixture clashes.

Rich: Ah yes. Some teams were playing in the FA Cup so they couldn’t play two games at the same time.

Jack: But there were still a couple of important Premier League games. Tottenham beat Aston Villa 2-0 with two goals from Harry Kane. Tottenham are still in second place but they are really challenging Leicester at the top. Villa are still bottom and look like they’ll be relegated. And on Monday Leicester beat/drew/lost to/with Newcastle but/and they are still top of the Premier League.

Rich: There were some great cup matches too. Everton beat Chelsea 2-0. Romelu Lukaku scored twice against his old club. Crystal Palace are through to the semi-finals for the first time in 25 years. And Watford surprised Arsenal 2-1 which means we will have a new FA Cup winner this season. But Manchester Utd and West Ham drew 1-1 so will have to play a replay next week. There was a fantastic goal by Dimitri Payet in that match, did you see it?

Jack: Yes, it was great. That isn’t the only Cup match Man Utd have taken part in this week, is it?

Rich: No, the Europa League match finished 2-0 to Liverpool. The second leg is at Old Trafford this week. They have a lot of work to do if they want to get back into the tie.

Jack: Some good football vocabulary there, Rich. I like this phrase get back into. It’s a phrasal verb that means to recover from something. So, if a team are losing 2-0 or 3-0 a commentator might say ’they need to score soon to get back into the game’.

Rich: Commentators often say something like this at the beginning of the second half. When it’s 2-0 at half-time, you often hear: ‘the next goal is so important’ and then; ‘if Utd score they’re right back in the match!’.

Jack: The second leg between Liverpool and Utd is on Thursday. We use legs when a competition has two matches in one round of the competition. Usually one match is played at home and the other away from home. This is the format that is used in the Champions League, and the Europa League.

Rich: So, Liverpool beat Manchester Utd 2-0 in the first leg.

Jack: Are you helping people to understand or did you just want to repeat that sentence?

Rich: Both!

Jack: But, we don’t know the result of the second leg, yet. Who do you think is going to win on aggregate?

Rich: On aggregate - another expression we hear a lot in European football. It means the scores of two matches added together. I think Liverpool will win 3-2 on aggregate!

Jack: This week’s language focus is on words that link sentences together. We’re going to speak about the top scorers in the Premier League. When we are speaking can you try to listen for words that help link things together.

Rich: You said that Harry Kane scored twice at the weekend. The race for this season’s Golden Boot is hotting up.

Jack: The Golden Boot is the trophy for the top goalscorer in the Premier League and you’re right, it’s very close at the top of the goalscoring table. Harry Kane scored his 18th and 19th goals of the season against Villa and now has scored the same amount of goals as Leicester’s Jamie Vardy.

Rich: Everton’s Romelu Lukaku scored twice at the weekend, too, but, these goals don’t count for the Golden Boot because only Premier League goals count. Nevertheless, he has 18 goals and is in great form.

Jack: Last season’s winner was Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero with 26 goals, and although he only has 16 so far this season he could still finish top of the goalscoring table again.

Rich: However, I think the dark horse to win may not be a striker. Despite being a winger, Leicester City’s Riyad Mahrez already has 15 goals this season.

Jack: In addition to these 5 players, there are others like Watford’s Odion Ighalo, who has 14 goals, or Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud, who has 12, who could still finish top, but they would have to score a lot of goals in the last few matches of the season.

Rich: We used quite a few different linking words in this section. Did you hear them all? We started by using some simple linking words like ‘and’ and ‘but’ when you said ‘Harry Kane scored his 19th goal of the season and now has the same as Jamie Vardy’.

Jack: And then when you were talking about Lukaku scoring two goals in the FA Cup, you said: ‘But, these goals don’t count for the Golden Boot’. Then, we started to use linking words that are a little bit more complicated. Rich used the word ‘nevertheless’. We use this word to say the thing we said before is not important or we’re not influenced by it.

Rich: I said ‘These goals don’t count for the Golden Boot. Nevertheless, he has 18 goals and is in great form’.

Jack: So, here Rich is saying that it’s not important that the cup goals don’t count because he already has 18 goals and is in great form.

Rich: Jack used the word ‘although’ to speak about Sergio Aguero. He said ‘although he only has 16 goals he could finish top scorer again.’ We can use although to introduce something that makes the second part of the sentence more surprising. Aguero only has 16 goals which is fewer than the others but he could win the trophy.

Jack: Another example might be ‘although the sun was shining, it wasn’t very warm’ or ‘although Liverpool scored three times, they still lost the match’.

Rich: I also used the word ‘however’. However is used to show a difference between something that has just been said. We spoke about four strikers and then I said ‘However, the winner might not be a striker’.

Jack: You also used the word despite. You said ‘despite being a winger, Mahrez has scored 15 goals’. Despite is used to show that there’s a difference between two ideas. We often use despite to show that someone is not stopped from doing something. So, Mahrez is a winger and not a striker, which usually means scoring fewer goals.

Rich: It hasn’t stopped him scoring lots of goals this season. We use despite plus the ing form here. Another example could be ‘despite being injured, the player continued to play.’

Jack: And finally, I used the phrase ‘in addition to’. We use this when we want to speak about something extra, beyond what we were already talking about.

Rich: So we spoke about five players and then we spoke about Olivier Giroud and Odion Ighalo. Jack said ‘In addition to these 5 players…’

Jack: That’s quite a lot of new language to try to use there. There are some activities with more detailed explanations further down the page. I hope you find it useful and have a go at using the words, especially if any are new for you, in the comments section below. We’ll be happy to correct any sentences if you write ‘correct me’ at the beginning of your message.

Rich: Now, for this week’s questions…… Question 1: Which player is going to win this season’s Golden Boot and why?

Jack: Question 2: Is the player that wins the Golden Boot always the best goal scorer in the Premier League? Why/Why not?

Rich: And question 3: We spoke about some of the best strikers in the Premier League this season. Can you tell us about the best goalkeepers, defenders or midfielders in the Premier League? Try to use some of the linking words we spoke about in your answer.

Jack: You predicted that Manchester Utd and West Ham would draw 1-1 and they did! Well done! You also said that Leicester would win and they did/but they drew/lost!

Rich: I wasn’t the only one to get the Manchester Utd - West Ham answer right this week, SalvaGH from Spain also predicted a 1-1 draw in that  match.

Jack: What about this week’s prediction, Rich?

Rich: There are two massive derby matches this weekend. The Tyne-Wear Derby between Newcastle and Sunderland and the Manchester Derby between City and Utd. Newcastle and Sunderland are trying to avoid relegation and Newcastle now have the former Liverpool and Real Madrid manager, Rafa Benitez at the club. Benitez should get the Newcastle players pulling together and you often see a new manager get good results when he starts at a new club. The Manchester Derby is always a massive game and Utd will want to win and put pressure on City in fourth place. Utd aren’t playing well at the moment but City might be thinking about the Champions League so I think Utd may surprise them.

Final scores: Newcastle 2-1 Sunderland and Manchester City 0-1 Manchester Utd

Jack: Right, anyway that’s it for today - we’ve run out of time! Thanks for listening. And don’t forget to write your answers to our questions, vote for who you think will win the Golden Boot, make your predictions and comment on anything you want to say about the website or football English in the message section below.

Rich: Don’t forget if you sign in, you can score points to see if you can get your club, your country and your name to the top of our leaderboard.

Jack:  Bye for now and enjoy your football!