Football Shout-out: The Opposition

Jack: Hello and welcome to Premier Skills English - Football Shout-out 

Rich: Football shout-out is the series that teaches you the language you need when you’re watching the game.

Jack: Hi everybody my name’s Jack 

Rich: and my name’s Rich and welcome to lesson three of Football Shout-out where we talk about the English you need when you’re watching football.

Jack: If you listened to our last lesson, you will remember this:

Rich: Referee! That’s gotta be a pen! It’s a definite penalty!

Jack: A penalty? He never touched him! That’s a dive!

Rich: What’s the ref doing?

Jack: It’s going to VAR. Now we’ll see.

Rich: He’s gotta to go! That’s gotta be a red. You can’t fly into a tackle like that. Studs up two-footed … horrible

Jack: What are you talking about? He got the ball. It was a fifty-fifty challenge - hard but fair! He went down way too easily!

Rich: What’s the ref given? It’s a penalty! Get in!

Jack: Our last lesson was all about the language of fouls and what fans say when a player is fouled. If you haven’t heard the lesson, there is a link on the side of this page for you to go back and listen and learn lots of fan language connected to fouls.

Rich: This lesson, though, is all about … say it quietly … the other side.

Jack: What? Speak up a bit!

Rich: The other side … the opposition.

Jack: Ahh! The opposition.

Rich: Yes, that’s right. Fans always speak about the other team before and during a game, and as always, what you say depends on who you are playing.

Jack: Listen to this.

Rich: We’re going to beat this lot today. They’re just going to park the bus. Play with eleven behind the ball.

Jack: I’m not so sure. They’re pretty solid at the back and quick on the counter-attack. Lots of people have been saying they could go quite far in the tournament. They’re a bit of a dark horse.

Rich: Nah! It’ll be attack against defence, like a training match. They play nice football but there’s no end product.

Jack: Mmm .. I hope you’re right, but we need to keep an eye on their number nine. He’s pretty quick.

Rich: Mmm … he’s alright but they haven’t got anyone else. We should turn them over easily.

Jack: We’ll see.

Rich: Talking about the opposition can be tricky. We usually don’t use team name’s we say ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ when talking about the team we support and ‘they’ ‘them’ and ‘their’ when talking about the opposition.

Jack: In the conversation, you heard they’re solid at the back and we need to keep an eye on their number nine.

Rich: I also referred to the other team as this lot. I said we’re going to beat this lot today. This is probably a sign of being overconfident and the other team is not very important.

Jack: Rich shows this overconfidence when he uses ‘just’. He says the other team are going to just park the bus. They are not going to do anything else.

Rich: Being confident or nervous about winning the match is definitely an important factor when speaking about the opposition.

Jack: In the conversation, I’m worried about the opposition, but Rich is confident about winning.

Rich: Jack says good things about the other team because he’s worried. He says they’re solid at the back which means they are good in defence and we have to keep an eye on their number nine which means our team has to watch the other team’s number nine carefully because he’s a good player.

Jack: Rich says thing like they will just park the bus which means the other team will only defend. He also says they play nice football, but there is no end product. This means that they pass the ball well in the middle of the park but can’t score goals.

Rich: I also said that their number nine is OK, but they haven’t got anyone else. This phrase - they haven’t got anyone else means I think that the other team haven’t got any other good players. 

Jack: It’s very common to hear people saying they haven’t got anyone in attack or in midfield. Of course, they do, but it means that you don’t think they have any good players in that area of the pitch.

Rich: We’ll look at these phrases and a few more in the lesson which you can find below this podcast.

Rich: Listen again. Do you understand everything now?

Rich: We’re going to beat this lot today. They’re just going to park the bus. Play with eleven behind the ball.

Jack: I’m not so sure. They’re pretty solid at the back and quick on the counter-attack. Lots of people have been saying they could go quite far in the tournament. They’re a bit of a dark horse.

Rich: Nah! It’ll be attack against defence, like a training match. They play nice football but there’s no end product.

Jack: Mmm .. I hope you’re right, but we need to keep an eye on their number nine. He’s pretty quick.

Rich: Mmm … he’s alright but they haven’t got anyone else. We should turn them over easily.

Jack: We’ll see.

Jack: So, that’s how you talk about the opposition in English. 

Rich: We’ve got some activities to help you remember the phrases that we’ve been speaking about in the lesson below this podcast.

Jack: We’ll be back soon with our next football English lesson, which will be about what we shout at our players and manager when watching a match.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.