Podcast 34

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

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

Jack: This week, we are going to talk about the Transfer Window. And the language focus is on phrases and vocabulary we use to talk about buying and selling players.   

Rich: Later I’ll make another Premier League prediction. And, of course, you have another chance to win a Samsung Galaxy tablet in our ‘What’s my Team?’ competition.

Jack: We’ve had lots of winners now but there are still four more chances to win.

Rich: What was the answer to last week’s riddle Jack?

Jack: Ah, yes. Last week it was Ella... her favourite Premier League team is West Bromwich Albion or West Brom or the Baggies. When you see it on the screen you often just see the acronym WBA, which stands for West Bromwich Albion.

Rich: An acronym is a short word that takes the first letters of a longer name. Some common acronyms are NASA, BBC or USA. There are lots of acronyms in football too. You might see BPL or EPL, which stand for Barclays Premier League and English Premier League.

Jack: Stand for is a phrasal verb which is used to say what an acronym means. BBC stands for British Broadcasting Corporation, USA stands for the United States of America and NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Rich: If you play football games like FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) or you play fantasy football you will probably also know lots of the acronyms for different positions on the football pitch. GK stands for goalkeeper for example or CF stands for centre forward.

Jack: If you know any other English acronyms put them in the comments section at the bottom of the page and let’s see if you can guess what they are. Anyway back to last week’s competition.

Rich: We have selected a winner at random from the correct answers and the sixteenth winner of the What’s my team? competition is SalvaGH a Manchester City fan from Spain. Congratulations SalvaGH, we’ll be in contact with you this week.

Jack: Well done SalvaGH! Later on in the podcast, you can listen to this week’s What’s my team riddle.

Rich: Last week we asked you about films and film characters you would play in a fantasy football team and we had some great responses.

Jack: Volodymr from Ukraine chose a team of characters from action and gangster movies including the terminator in midfield - there would have to be a strong referee for their matches.

Rich: Heaton 555 from Armenia and Hosamn from Egypt both chose James Bond in their teams. I think he would be a great choice. And Nikosonris from Ukraine chose Harry Potter as a striker because he could make some magic upfront.

Jack: Some of you also recommended films. Sefovic712 from Egypt recommended a drama called Paper Towns, Amaral from Albania enjoyed The Revenant which stars Leonard di Caprio,Edmond Elomayan from Armenia recommended the Imitation Game which is about code breakers in the second world war. Finally SalvaGH, this week’s competition winner, says Invictus which is about Nelson Mandela and rugby is a great film and you should watch it.

Rich: I haven’t seen any of those films so thanks for the advice everybody! Last week we spoke about Eric Cantona and Vinnie Jones who have become actors and some of you told us about some more footballers in films.

Jack: A few of you spoke about the Goal trilogy - a trilogy is a group of three films or books that have the same characters or topic. The story or plot is about a Mexican boy who plays for Newcastle Utd and then Real Madrid and then the World Cup in the later stories. The film has cameo appearances, which are small parts in films, by some of the biggest stars in football, including: David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Theirry Henry, Zinedine Zidane and many more.

Rich: And finally Elghoul from Algeria spoke about a football film called Escape to Victory that you may not have seen because it was made back in 1981! The film starred Sylvester Stallone as goalkeeper, Bobby Moore in defence and Pele in attack. The film is worth watching just for Pele’s winning goal!

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

Rich: It’s been an exciting week. There have been 20 matches in the EPL this week. The most exciting matches were three 3-3 draws. The matches between Newcastle and Manchester Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal and Chelsea and Everton all finished 3-3 and all had last minute equalisers!

Jack: I think the most exciting was Chelsea v Everton. Everton made it 3-2 after 91 minutes but Chelsea equalised after 98! Amazing! It’s very close at the top of the table now, too.

Rich: Yes, only one point separates Arsenal, Leicester City and Manchester City. It’s very close and I think maybe a few clubs will be looking to buy players in the transfer window.

Jack: That’s right, the January Transfer Window is open, which is the time when Premier League clubs can buy and sell players. And Arsenal have already bought one player.

Rich: Yes, I saw they have bought Egyptian midfielder Mohamed Elneny from Swiss club, Basel. Are you happy with that?

Jack: I think he’s a good player and a good holding midfielder is just what Arsenal need for the second half of the season. A holding midfielder is a defensive midfielder who is good at stopping attacks from the other team and starting attacks by giving the ball to more creative players. I think Nemanja Matic at Chelsea or Michael Carrick at MAnchester Utd are good examples of holding midfielders.

Rich: There will be lots of players moving clubs in January, so let’s look at some of the language and phrases that are used in connection with the transfer window and the word transfer.

Jack: Let’s look at the word ‘transfer’ first. Transfer can be used as a noun or a verb. A transfer is a deal or transaction for a player to move from one club to another. On Sunday, Mohamed Elneny was on the substitutes bench for the first time since his transfer from Basel to Arsenal. As a verb it has the same meaning and you can say Elneny transferred from Basel to Arsenal. We always use the same prepositions here ..from one place …….to another place.

Rich: There are some other noun phrases that are used with the word transfer. Transfer fee is one that you will see a lot. Last weekend Charlie Austin moved from QPR (Queens Park Rangers) to Southampton for a £4 million pound transfer fee. A fee is an amount of money you pay for a service or to a business. For example you might pay an entrance fee to go into a museum or need to pay legal fees to ask a lawyer for help.

Jack: Very often you will see the phrase ‘undisclosed transfer fee’ or ‘undisclosed fee’. Undisclosed means not told to anyone, clubs sometimes prefer to keep the transfer fee quiet because they don’t want other clubs to know how much they spent on a player.

Rich: But newspapers and fans want to know how much players cost so you often see the phrase ‘reported fee’. Reported means that the fee has been said but not officially so the accuracy of what the newspaper says cannot be trusted 100%.

Jack: So I’ve read that Mohamed Elneny arrived from Basel for a reported fee of £7 million but we can’t be totally sure of this because officially the fee was undisclosed.

Rich: It’s quite complicated. Another phrase you might here is transfer deadline. Deadline is a word that is used to describe a point in time when everything has to be finished.

Jack: And all transfers between clubs have to be completed by 23:00 (GMT) on the 1st of February. This day is called Transfer Deadline Day and is often the day when most transfers are completed.

Rich: That’s right! So, with the transfer deadline getting closer there is certain to be lots of buying and selling in the next two weeks. Which brings us to our questions for you this week. Question 1. Which players would you like your club to buy in the January Transfer Window?

Jack: Question 2. Do you think the January Transfer Window is a good time to buy players? Why/Why not?

Rich: Question 3. Do you always believe what you read online or in newspapers? Why/why not?

Jack: Right, I think it’s time for this week’s competition: ‘What’s my Team?’!

Rich: Here is what you have to do. Listen to a Premier League fan, who will talk about their favourite team and then write the name of the team  in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Jack: And for each of the 20 podcast competitions the lucky winner will receive a fantastic Samsung Galaxy Tablet. We wish you the best of luck!

Rich: Right, so this week, our Premier League fan is Martin. Listen to Martin’s riddle and try to work out what’s her team?

Martin: My team is one of five that are based in London. Our manager is the longest-serving manager in the Premier League - The Professor has been with us for nearly 20 years. We won the FA Cup last season and Mesut Ozil is my favourite player. Come on you Gunners!

Rich: Any ideas, Jack?

Jack: No idea at all. Right, Rich, it’s time for your Premier League prediction.

Jack: You can’t have been happy with your prediction last week.

Rich: No I wasn’t. I wasn’t happy with the result either. Manchester Utd won with their only shot on target! Anyway it’s your turn this week!

Jack: What do you mean? Congratulations to JelenaN from Bosnia and Herzegovina, SalvaGH from Spain, Rasha Nahas from Saudi Arabia, RuslanJon from Uzbekistan, Edmond Eloyan from Armenia, and Nyinyi from Myanmar who said Manchester Utd would beat Liverpool and a special mention for Nikosonris from Ukraine who was the only listener who predicted the exact score!

Rich: There is a big London Derby in the Premier League this weekend. Arsenal are at home to Chelsea and will be looking to extend their lead at the top of the Premier League table. Arsenal are looking good at the moment but they were held to a 0-0 draw by Stoke in their last match and 3-3 by Liverpool in the match before. Chelsea came back to draw 3-3 with Everton but don’t have much to play for this season and look like they will finish in mid-table. But this is a London Derby and form can often go out of the window. Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez were injured for the match against Stoke and if they miss the Chelsea match I can see a 0-0 draw or even a 1-0 win for Chelsea. If Ozil and Sanchez play I’d go for an Arsenal win. Final score: Arsenal 0-0 Chelsea

Jack: You seem to have predicted three different result there, Rich.

Rich: One of them should be correct!

Jack: I like the phrase ‘go out the window’ - it means something is lost or forgotten. So in derby matches normal rules of who is playing well or badly are not important. 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 the competition, our questions, your predictions and anything you want to say about the website or football English in the comments 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!