This Week: Lionesses win it for England

Hello my name’s Jack and welcome to the weekly round-up called This Week on Premier Skills English.

In This Week, we’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

If you are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify you can also visit the Premier Skills English website at britishcouncil.org/premierskillsenglish where you’ll be able to download the podcast.

On the Premier Skills English website, you can read the transcript and join the Premier Skills English community by completing a language task in the comments section. This will really help you remember the new words and phrases from the stories from the Premier League.

We’re still waiting on the start of the Premier League, but there’s not long to wait now. We are only a few days away from the opening match. However, there has been some football news that I can’t resist talking about.

Football Phrase

But before that, I want to look at last week’s football phrase. If you didn’t hear it last week, here’s one more chance to guess now.

Last week’s football phrase was ***** *** *******. This is not really a football phrase, but we did describe it in the Premier Vocabulary section and it’s related, well slightly, to today’s topic. The phrase means feeling a bit unwell. Not really sick, just a bit tired and run down, perhaps with a cough or cold, but not very sick. If you are ***** *** *******, you will probably not visit a doctor, but you may take things easy and stay in bed.

So ... who got the right answer? Well, congratulations to Taher Koshen from Somalia, Vietnguyengo from Vietnam, Hsn from Turkey, and Goku from Japan.

All of you managed to work out that the phrase I was looking for was under the weather.

Now it’s time for this week’s big story from the world of football.

England win Women’s Euros

The Lionesses made history yesterday when they beat Germany in the final of the Women’s European football championship taking home the first major silverware for England in 56 years.

The victory for the England team has brought joy to millions of supporters, many of whom have been crowding into London to join celebrations on Trafalgar Square. The air is alive with the sound of cheering and singing, especially the football anthem Three Lions which was written back in 96 for the men’s competition. The main lyric is ‘It’s coming home, it’s coming home, football’s coming home’. However, back in 96, it turned out that it wasn’t actually coming home and then when it was sung again at World Cups and Euro Championships, it still wasn’t coming home. 26 years later, the lyrics were changed and players from the women’s team were added and finally, the lionesses brought it home.

And they did it in style in front of 87,192 fans at Wembley meaning that the final had the highest attendance of any European Championship. If you look at footage from the first Women’s Euros final when Sweden beat England, the stands are virtually empty. To see the rise in popularity of women’s football and the strength of the Women's Super League is amazing.

The match was close. England pushed hard at the start but couldn’t break through and there wasn’t a lot between the two teams. When the halftime whistle was blown, the score was still 0-0 and I don’t think either team felt confident. But both teams pushed hard when the match restarted and finally England were rewarded when Ella Toone picked up a through pass that beat the defenders. One-on-one with the keeper, Toone coolly chipped Frohms to rapturous applause from the fans.

Germany struck back with 11 minutes of normal time left on the clock. Without breaking her stride, Magull connected with Wassmuth’s low cross, flicking the ball into the top of the net.

The match went into extra time and it was looking like we were heading to penalties when Chloe Kelly poked the ball over the line and scored the winning goal.

In my lifetime, Women’s football has grown from something of a novelty that wasn’t really taken seriously by most people to a sporting phenomenon and a powerful source of inspiration. As well as the 87,000 fans at the stadium. 17.4 million watched it live in the UK and it has been streamed online nearly 6m times. It was watched by 17.8 million viewers in Germany which has made it the most popular women’s football match in history.

Sarina Wiegman, the Dutch manager, has done an amazing job with the England team. Seeing the women and girls celebrating with the men and boys is so refreshing. Even the Queen was moved to comment, saying that the victory was “a significant achievement” and that the Lionesses have “set an example that will be an inspiration for girls and women today, and for future generations”.

I think that most positive message I saw was on the advertising banners around the pitch that said #NotWomensFootball, it’s just football.

There are 8 items of vocabulary from this story that I want to talk about. They are: to make history, silverware, attendance, rapturous applause, to break your stride, novelty, significant and inspiration.

The first phrase is to make history.

To make history means to do something that will be remembered in the future. We often use it to talk about events in science and technology. For example, Neil Armstrong made history when he became the first person to walk on the moon. When something popular or important happens for the first time or for the first time in a long time, it makes history. You can also create history, but the collocation to make history is more common.

Next, I want to talk about the word silverware

Silverware refers to trophies. The word ware means manufactured items. It’s commonly found in compound nouns like glassware for things made out of glass and tableware which are things you have on the table when you eat, knives and forks as well as dinner plates and anything you might use at dinner. Silverware means items made of silver, but in a football context that’s just trophies.

The next noun is attendance.
The noun attendance comes from the verb to attend. If you attend an event, you are physically at the event. The total number of people who attend an event is the attendance.

This next phrase is quite advanced: rapturous applause.
I said that Toone’s chipped goal drew rapturous applause from the crowd. The adjective rapturous is used to describe something that shows extreme pleasure or happiness. The crowd cheered and clapped with extreme pleasure when Toome scored with such style in the final. It is most commonly collocated with applause and it’s not used in many other collocations so it’s worth learning as a single item - rapturous applause.

The next phrase is to break your stride.
The word stride can be used as a verb and then it means to walk confidently with long steps. When it’s used as a noun, it means the rhythm of a person’s walking or running. If you break your stride, you stop slightly or change your speed. If you are able to keep walking or running at the same speed, then you are doing it without breaking your stride.

The next word is a noun, novelty.
If something is a novelty, it is something new or unusual. People are interested in novelties because they are unusual. However, the word has a slightly negative connotation because it’s often implied that the value of a novelty will decrease once it’s no longer new. The phrase ‘a novelty act’, for example, is used to describe a performance that you probably only want to watch once. Once the novelty has worn off, it won’t be as interesting.

Now I want to talk about the adjective significant.
The word significant means important. It is used when an event or action has a value that goes beyond the immediate impact. So a significant legal decision will have an impact on lots of people. A significant breakthrough in science is significant if it changes how we understand things or how things are done in the future. So significant means important now and for the future.

The last word I want to talk about is the noun inspiration.
An inspiration is someone or something that makes you want to do something. I suppose we normally talk about inspiration in terms of ideas. When you are inspired by something, it gives you an idea. We say that artists are inspired when they get ideas that they turn into works of art and people are inspired if they see something or someone who fills them with the determination to succeed and to do something difficult.

OK. That’s 8 words or phrases today. The words and phrases from the story were: to make history, silverware, attendance, rapturous applause, to break your stride, novelty, significant and inspiration.

Listen to the story one more time to hear these words and phrases in context.

England win Women’s Euros

The Lionesses made history yesterday when they beat Germany in the final of the Women’s European football championship taking home the first major silverware for England in 56 years.

The victory for the England team has brought joy to millions of supporters, many of whom have been crowding into London to join celebrations on Trafalgar Square. The air is alive with the sound of cheering and singing, especially the football anthem Three Lions which was written back in 96 for the men’s competition. The main lyric is ‘It’s coming home, it’s coming home, football’s coming home’. However, back in 96, it turned out that it wasn’t actually coming home and then when it was sung again at World Cups and Euro Championships, it still wasn’t coming home. 26 years later, the lyrics were changed and players from the women’s team were added and finally, the lionesses brought it home.

And they did it in style in front of 87,192 fans at Wembley meaning that the final had the highest attendance of any European Championship. If you look at footage from the first Women’s Euros final when Sweden beat England, the stands are virtually empty. To see the rise in popularity of women’s football and the strength of the Women's Super League is amazing.

The match was close. England pushed hard at the start but couldn’t break through and there wasn’t a lot between the two teams. When the halftime whistle was blown, the score was still 0-0 and I don’t think either team felt confident. But both teams pushed hard when the match restarted and finally England were rewarded when Ella Toone picked up a through pass that beat the defenders. One-on-one with the keeper, Toone coolly chipped Frohms to rapturous applause from the fans.

Germany struck back with 11 minutes of normal time left on the clock. Without breaking her stride, Magull connected with Wassmuth’s low cross, flicking the ball into the top of the net.

The match went into extra time and it was looking like we were heading to penalties when Chloe Kelly poked the ball over the line and scored the winning goal.

In my lifetime, Women’s football has grown from something of a novelty that wasn’t really taken seriously by most people to a sporting phenomenon and a powerful source of inspiration. As well as the 87,000 fans at the stadium. 17.4 million watched it live in the UK and it has been streamed online nearly 6m times. It was watched by 17.8 million viewers in Germany which has made it the most popular women’s football match in history.

Sarina Wiegman, the Dutch manager, has done an amazing job with the England team. Seeing the women and girls celebrating with the men and boys is so refreshing. Even the Queen was moved to comment, saying that the victory was “a significant achievement” and that the Lionesses have “set an example that will be an inspiration for girls and women today, and for future generations”.

I think that most positive message I saw was on the advertising banners around the pitch that said #NotWomensFootball, it’s just football.

Language Challenge

Right, now it’s time for you to think about the language again.

Here are 8 sentences with gaps in them and you have to complete the gaps with the words and phrases from this podcast.

Number 1: His manager glanced at his desk as he passed but kept walking without _______ ___ _____.

Number 2: When I was growing up, sushi was seen as quite a ________ in the UK, but you can find it in lots of restaurants these days.

Number 3: Tottenham Hotspur had the highest home ___________ for any match when they played at Wembley when the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was being built.

Number 4: At the end of the play, the audience burst into ________ ________.

Number 5: Barack Obama ____ _______ when he became the first African American president of the United States of America.

Number 6: Liverpool has the most ___________ of any English football club.

Number 7: Small changes in global temperatures will have a ___________ impact on weather conditions.

Number 8: Marcus Rashford’s campaign against food poverty has been an ___________ for many footballers to use their voice and influence.

Leave your answers in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website and I will go through them next week.

Football phrase

Now it’s time for this week’s football phrase.

This week’s football phrase is *******. This is the word for a woman who is admired for her strength or achievements or other outstanding characteristics. The word is different for men. I think the word comes from classical stories and means women who went on quests to fight monsters. Today, we use it to talk about women who inspire us and who we really respect.

If you know the answer to this week’s football phrase, leave it in the comments section on the page for this podcast on Premier Skills English.

Very quickly, here are the answers to last week’s language challenge.

Number 1. Lewis Hamilton went vegan in 2017 for environmental reasons and to help with his training.

Number 2. Engineers have created the world's first carbon-neutral cement out of algae that absorbs as much carbon when it grows as is generated when the cement is produced.

Number 3. The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is to consume local and seasonal products and limit your meat consumption, especially beef.

Number 4. Sustainable energy includes all renewable energy sources, such as hydroelectricity, biomass, geothermal, wind, wave, tidal and solar energies.

Number 5. The best time to fertilise your houseplants is when spring is just around the corner.

Number 6. The South West of England is leading the way with 378 installations of solar panels per 10,000 households

I hope you got them all right!

That’s all I have time for today. Before I finish, I just wanted to say that I hope you found this podcast useful, and I hope all of you stay fit and healthy and safe.

Bye for now and enjoy your football.