This Week: Fantasy Football

Welcome to This Week from Premier Skills English, a weekly review of football action for learners of English from across the globe. In This Week, Rich and Jack talk about the latest action from the Premier League and have lots of football English for you to learn.

In this podcast, Jack and Rich chose their fantasy football squad on fantasy.premierleague.com. They needed to choose fifteen players for their squad and they have £100 million to spend. They also decided to give themselves an additional challenge. They decided to choose players from fifteen different countries and fifteen different Premier League clubs.

Fantasy

Fantasy Football: Goalkeepers

Rich and Jack needed to choose two goalkeepers. They chose Arsenal's Bernd Leno (£5M) and Brighton's Roberto Sanchez (£4.5M). Look at the sentences from the podcast and check your understanding of the phrases in bold.

Jack: So, who have we chosen to play in goal for the Premier Skills team? We needed to choose two goalkeepers.

Rich: Well, we decided not to break the bank with goalkeepers but we wanted to choose a keeper that will play every week and has a good chance of keeping clean sheets.

Jack: Our first choice is Arsenal’s German goalkeeper, Bernd Leno. He should play every week so should pick up points if Arsenal concede fewer goals than last season.

Rich: And if we decide to drop Leno we’ve got Brighton’s Spanish, Roberto Sanchez, in reserve to go between the sticks. 

Jack: Brighton finished 16th last season but let in fewer goals than nine of the teams that finished above them so we think Sanchez could get a few points.

Fantasy

Fantasy Football: Defenders

Rich and Jack needed to choose five defenders. They chose West Ham’s, Vladimir Coufal (£5M), Newcastle’s Fabian Schar (£4.5M), Southampton’s Jannik Vestergaard (£5M), Crystal Palace’s Cheikhou Kouyaté (£4.5M) and Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.5M). Look at the sentences from the podcast and check your understanding of the phrases in bold.

Jack: So, who do we have at the back?

Rich: In defence, we have West Ham’s Czech defender, Vladimir Coufal.

Jack: That looks like a defence that won’t concede too many and should get a few clean sheets.

Fantasy

Fantasy Football: Midfielders

Rich and Jack needed to choose five midfielders. They chose Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne (£12M), Tottenham’s Heung-min Son (£10M), Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes (£12M), Leicester City’s Wilfred Ndidi (£5M) and Leeds United’s Raphina (£6.5M). Look at the sentences from the podcast and check your understanding of the phrases in bold.

Jack: And who will we have in midfield?

Rich: We’ve got Manchester City’s Belgian midfielder Kevin de Bruyne, Tottenham’s South Korean midfielder Heung-min Son and Manchester United’s Portuguese midfielder Bruno Fernandes.

Jack: These players should score a lot of points.

Rich: Hopefully. It’s much better to try to pick a creative midfielder than a holding midfielder because they will score you more points.

Fantasy

Fantasy Football: Attackers

Rich and Jack needed to choose three forwards. They chose Norwich City’s Teemu Pukki (£6M), Wolverhampton Wandererer’s, Raul Jimenez (£7.5M) and Watford’s Cucho Hernandez (£5M). Look at the sentences from the podcast and check your understanding of the phrases in bold.

Rich: Well, after spending all that money on our midfield we didn’t have that much left so there’s no Harry Kane up front.

Jack: So who have we gone for in attack. Remember that we need three different clubs and three different nationalities.

Rich: Yes, we made it very difficult for ourselves but in the end, we’ve gone for Norwich City’s Finnish forward Teemu Pukki, Wolverhampton Wandererer’s Mexican striker, Raul Jimenez and Watford’s Colombian attacker Cucho Hernandez.

Jack: We had to take a few risks with our forward line - let’s see how many goals we can get.

Play

How to play Fantasy Football

Sign up for the Premier Skills English Fantasy Football League on premierleague.com by using this code: ufn7bv

Or follow this link: https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/ufn7bv 

Vocabulary

Football Phrase

Have you had a go at this week's football phrase? Every week in our main podcast we ask our listeners to guess a football phrase. We repeated it in this episode. Do you know the football phrase? Guess the right answer and we'll announce your name on next week's show.

Write all your comments and answers in the comments section below.

Vocabulary

Language Challenge

Jack and Rich chose their fantasy football squad in this podcast. Have you chosen your team yet? Tell us the players you want in your fantasy football team and use the words in bold in your answers.

• Who will you have in goal?
• Who will you have at the back?
• Who will you pick in midfield?
• Who will you choose up front? 

Write your answers in the comments section at the bottom of the page.