This Week: Football Phrasal Verbs 3

This Week: Football Phrasal Verbs 3 

Laura: Hello my name’s Laura and welcome to our weekly round-up section called ‘This Week’ on Premier Skills English. 

Jack: Hi there. I’m Jack. We’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

Rich: My name’s Rich. If you want to listen and read at the same time we have a transcript of this podcast on the Premier Skills English website.

Laura: This week we focus on Premier League wins for West Ham, Manchester United and Newcastle United.

Jack: We’re going to look at three headlines from the weekend’s action and look at some phrasal verbs we use in those headlines.

Rich: We want you to use and practise these phrasal verbs by interacting with football fans from around the world in our comments section.

Laura: You can find all our latest content on the Premier Skills English homepage or the Premier Skills-British Council Facebook page. 

Jack: The phrasal verbs we are looking at this week are: to turn out, to fight back, to rule out, to run out of, to turn around and to stay up.

Rich: Remember that we’ll also have a language challenge for you to have a go at later in the show so you need to be ready for that.

Headline 1

Jack: Hammers in the hunt for Europe.

Laura: West Ham’s fantastic season continued with a 3-2 win against top-four rivals, Leicester City. Jesse Lingard scored twice as West Ham raced into a 3-0 lead, early in the second half. From there, the match turned out to be more difficult. Leicester fought back with two goals from Kelechi Ihenacho but it wasn’t enough for the Foxes.

Rich: This could turn out to be a really special season for West Ham. They are in fourth place and are just a point behind Leicester.

Jack: They could qualify for the Champions League for the first-ever time.

Laura: And Leicester need to improve or this season could turn out to be another missed opportunity.

Rich: Let’s look at some language. The two phrasal verbs we want to look at are: to turn out and to fight back.

Jack: Let’s start with the phrasal verb to turn out; we’ve used it a few times already. In the headline, Laura said the match turned out to be more difficult.

Laura: In this example, turn out is followed by to be and we use it to say that something ended differently from how we expected. West Ham thought the match was going to be easy because they were winning 3-0 but it turned out to be more difficult as Leicester scored twice.

Rich: I also used this phrasal verb when I said this season could turn out to be a very special season for West Ham. It could prove to be a better season than people might have expected, it could be a very special season because they could qualify for the Champions League for the first time.

Jack: And Laura said Leicester need to improve or this season could turn out to be another missed opportunity.

Laura: Leicester have been in the top four all season so don’t want to miss out on qualifying for the Champions League. That’s what happened last season.

Rich: At least Leicester improved in the second half against West Ham. They fought back and could have got a point.

Jack: This is our second phrasal verb: to fight back. In the headline, Laura said Leicester fought back with two goals from Kelechi Ihenacho.

Laura: To fight back means to attack someone who has attacked you. It could be used to describe a fight between two people or animals but it doesn’t necessarily need to describe physical fighting.

Rich: It’s used in football to describe a team that is losing that starts attacking and scoring goals. Leicester fought back but it was too late for them to get anything out of this game.

Jack: Let’s move on to our second headline.

Headline 2 

Laura: United fight back to beat Tottenham.

Rich: Manchester United came from behind to beat Spurs 3-1. United thought they had taken the lead but had a goal ruled out before Son Heung-min scored for Tottenham just before the break. United stormed back after the break with three goals against a Tottenham team that ran out of attacking ideas.

Jack: A good win for United but a bad day for Spurs who are struggling to get into the top four this season.

Laura: Yes, it’s very different from the start of the season. If you remember, Spurs won the match at Old Trafford 6-1.

Rich: OK, we want to look at two more phrasal verbs. The phrasal verbs that we have taken from this headline are: to rule out and to run out of.

Jack: In the headline, Rich said United had a goal ruled out in the first half.

Laura: In football, to rule something out is nearly always referring to a goal that has been disallowed by the referee or VAR.

Rich: United’s goal was ruled out because of a foul. The goal was disallowed - it was ruled out.

Jack: More generally we use the phrasal verb rule out to say that something is not possible or an option or choice has been excluded and definitely won’t happen.

Laura: We might say that one suspect has been ruled out of the murder inquiry as they have an alibi or that the recent peace talks have come to nothing but further talks have not been ruled out.

Rich: The second phrasal verb I want to look at from this headline is to run out of.

Jack: Rich said that Tottenham ran out of attacking ideas in the second half.

Laura: To run out of something means to finish a supply of something - to have nothing left of something. I might run out of peanut butter and have to go to the shops.

Rich: Tottenham ran out of attacking ideas - they couldn’t create any chances against United.

Jack: Remember that there are two particles in this multi-word verb: out and of. We need to say that we’ve run out of something.

Laura: Let’s move on to our final headline.

Headline 3

Rich: Newcastle closing in on Premier League safety.

Jack: Newcastle United fell behind early on in their match against Burnley but Allan Saint-Maximin came off the bench to turn the match around for the Magpies. Saint-Maximin first set up the equaliser for Jacob Murphy and then scored a brilliant winner. Newcastle are now six points clear of Fulham in their battle to stay up.

Laura: A great win for Newcastle. I really see them staying up now. It is looking more and more difficult for the bottom three clubs to turn things around.

Rich: I agree. Let’s look at our final two phrasal verbs. They are to turn something around and to stay up.

Jack: I said that Allan Saint-Maximin turned the match around for Newcastle.

Laura: To turn something around means to make something successful that was unsuccessful before.

Rich: Newcastle were losing but then Saint-Maximin came on and turned things around. Newcastle won the match.

Jack: This phrasal verb is often used in business. One business might buy another business that is not doing very well and turn it around. It becomes successful and profitable.

Laura: And there is a much more common meaning to turn around. It also means to change direction. If I ask you to turn around it means to face the other way. Teachers often say turn around and stop chatting to your friend.

Rich: The final phrasal verb this week is to stay up. Jack said that Newcastle are now six points clear of Fulham in their battle to stay up.

Jack: And Laura said: I really see them staying up now.

Laura: in football, to stay up means to remain in the division and not get relegated. I think Newcastle will stay up. I don’t think they will get relegated.

Rich: This phrasal verb has one other meaning that I know of. It means to go to bed later than usual.

Jack: Yeah, you can say things like I stayed up really late last night because I was revising.

Laura: I sometimes stay up late because I’m watching Netflix. It’s difficult to turn it off sometimes.

Rich: OK,  We’ve looked at three stories and six phrasal verbs in our headlines. The phrasal verbs we looked at were:  to turn out, to fight back, to rule out, to run out of, to turn around and to stay up.

Jack: Listen to the headlines again to hear these words and phrases in context and don’t forget to look at the website for the transcript if you want to check your understanding of this vocabulary.

Headlines - Repeat

Prediction

Laura: It’s time for our football prediction. Last week Rich got the prediction right because he said that Manchester United would win at Tottenham.

Jack: That means that you are going to make our prediction this week, Rich.

Rich: This weekend is FA Cup semi-final weekend. The first semi-final is between Manchester City and Chelsea and I’m going to go with Manchester City in that one but the second semi-final is much more difficult to predict. The match is Southampton and Leicester City. Leicester have never won the FA Cup and Southampton have only won it once a long, long time ago. It will be a close game and there will be lots of nerves and I’m going to go for a surprise result because I think Southampton will get through to the FA Cup Final. Final score: Southampton 1-0 Leicester City.

Laura: I’m not so sure. I think Leicester will win 2-1.

Jack: I think Leicester will win, too but they’ll need penalties to do it. 5-4 to Leicester on penalties.

Rich: What do you think the score will be? Do you agree with me, Jack or Laura?

Laura: We want you to talk about all this week’s football on the Premier Skills English website.

Language Challenge

Jack: To finish up the show we’ve got a quick language challenge connected to this week’s vocabulary.

Rich: We looked at six phrasal verbs in this week’s headlines and your language challenge is to use those phrasal verbs now.

Laura: We’re going to give you three sentences and you’ve got to decide which phrasal verb to use. You need to use one of the six we looked at earlier.  Can you guess the missing phrasal verb?

Rich: I’ve __________  adjectives to describe how good Manchester City have been this season.

Jack: It’s exciting when a team _______ . I don’t like it when matches are really one-sided.

Laura: I don't think Manchester City will win four trophies this season but you can’t _______  yet.

Rich: We want you to write the answers on the Premier Skills English website where we have some more questions and activities connected to this week’s show.

Jack: Or write your answers on Apple Podcasts or on Youtube if that’s where you listen to us. Just write the answers in the comments and say hi.

Laura: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope all of you stay fit and healthy.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.