This Week: Project Europe

Project Europe 

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

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

Jack: And I’m Jack and we hope you are all well.

Laura: The Premier League season is over but Premier League teams will still be in action over the next few weeks.

Rich: This week we’re going to be talking about the three Premier League teams that are still alive in Europe.

Jack: And on top of that we have plenty more football English for you to learn, too.

Laura: First of all, we’re going to take a look at three football headlines and focus on some useful bits of vocabulary. 

Rich: And we want you to use and practise these words and phrases by interacting with Premier League fans from around the world in our comments section.

Jack: And a little later we’ll also have a Premier League prediction for you. 

Laura: If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, you can leave your comments in the review section. We do read all the reviews and would love to hear from you.

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

Jack: Don’t forget that we also have our weekly Premier Skills English podcast that is released every Friday. Every week we help you with some different vocabulary or an aspect of grammar.

Laura: Our latest podcast is called Learning Vocabulary: Agreeing and Disagreeing.

Rich: We take a look back at the Premier League season and decide to give out a few Premier Skills English awards.

Laura: But Rich, Rowan and Jack can’t agree and they end up arguing.

Jack: We focus on words and phrases we use to agree and disagree. You can find the lesson on the homepage on the Premier Skills English website. 

Rich: You’re now going to hear our three headlines. After each headline, we’ll have a little discussion and look at some vocabulary. 

Laura: The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: tie, convincing, on aggregate, book a place in the next round, on course and get through.

Jack: After the headlines, we want you to make a Premier League prediction and we have a language challenge for you to have a go at.

Headline 1

Rich: City knock out Europe’s finest. 

Jack: Manchester City finished off the job they started in February with a convincing 2-1 win in the second leg of their Champions League tie against Real Madrid. Raheem Sterling opened the scoring following a mistake by Raphael Varane and could have added more before Karim Benzema equalised for Madrid. Gabriel Jesus got the winning goal in the second half to make the tie safe for the team in blue.

Laura: A great win for City - knocking out the thirteen times winners from Madrid.

Rich: Yes, it’s the first time Zinedine Zidane has ever been knocked out of the Champions League as a manager.

Jack: They now go to the final eight tournament in Portugal. They’ve got Lyon in the quarter-finals on Saturday.

Laura: They had to wait six months to finish their tie against Madrid and have their next match just a week later.

Rich: Let’s look at a couple of bits of vocabulary from that headline. The first word is tie. We spoke about City’s tie against Real Madrid. Isn’t it the same as game or match?

Jack: Not quite. When we spoke about the tie between Madrid and City we’re talking about the two matches between the teams: the first leg and the second leg.

Laura: City won the first leg and the second leg so they won the tie overall. Tie is also used to speak about cup matches and tie is a shortened version of cup tie.

Rich: Ah yes, we might say the tie of the round is Arsenal against Tottenham. That means we think it’s the most exciting match or cup tie or tie in that round of matches.

Jack: We don’t usually use it to talk about normal league matches. We say which match or game are you going to watch this weekend - not which tie.

Laura: There’s another meaning to tie as well; it’s the same as a draw. The match ended 1-1. It finished in a tie. This is more common in American English. In football English, it’s better to use the word draw.

Rich: OK, so we use tie to describe cup matches and matches over two legs and we can use it to mean draw. Got it.

Jack: The next word we’re going to look at is convincing. This is an adjective and we see it quite a lot in football. We said that it was a convincing win for City.

Laura: Here it basically means that it was an easy win and City played well - they played like possible champions. Through their play they are convincing people that they are good enough to win.

Rich: More generally, convincing means to make someone believe that something is true. We often use it about actors. It was a very convincing performance.

Jack: Or maybe when someone wants you to believe something is true. She was very convincing - I think she must have seen an alien.

Laura: OK, let’s move on to headline two.

Headline 2

Jack: Wolves join United in Germany.

Laura: Wolverhampton Wanderers booked their place in the final eight tournament of the Europa League with a hard-fought victory against Olympiakos of Greece. Raul Jimenez scored the only goal of the game to win the tie 2-1 on aggregate. Wolves will be joined in Germany by Manchester United who confirmed their place with a 2-1 win against LASK of Austria to win their tie 7-1 on aggregate. 

Rich: That was a difficult match for Wolves and they’ve got Sevilla from Spain in the quarter-finals who have won the Europa League a record five times.

Jack: A tricky tie. Manchester United have FC Copenhagen which looks easier on paper but I suppose there are no easy games at this stage of a competition.

Laura: Let’s look at a bit of language. We said Wolves have booked their place in the final eight tournament.

Rich: We often see this phrase used to talk about cup competitions: booked their place in the next round, booked their place in the semi-finals .. that kind of thing.

Jack: To book something means to reserve something, to arrange something in advance. You might book a table in a restaurant, book a holiday online - that kind of thing.

Laura: The phrase is being used in a non-literal way here as a team can’t book a place in the next round. The only way to play in the next round is to win.

Rich: We also said Manchester United confirmed their place in the next round. We used confirmed instead of booked here because there was little doubt that United would reach the next round. They won the first leg 5-0.

Jack: The next phrase we want to look at is on aggregate. On aggregate is the scores from a number of games added together. 

Laura: In cup competitions, teams often play two matches against each other and the winner is the team that scores more goals over the two matches.

Rich: Wolves beat Olympiakos 2-1 on aggregate. The first match finished 1-1 and Wolves won the second match 1-0.

Jack: Let’s listen to our third headline.

Headline 3

Jack: Mini tournaments to decide European Champions.

Rich: Mini tournaments in Portugal and Germany will decide this season's Champions and Europa Leagues. Both kick off this week with the final eight teams playing one-legged matches. Manchester United are on course to meet Wolves in the semi-finals if they get through their quarter-finals and Manchester City could potentially play Bayern Munich in the semis in the Champions League.

Laura: Both tournaments are being played over the next two weeks so lots of football to look forward to.

Jack: Wolves against Manchester United would be nice. An all Premier League match - a Premier League derby.

Rich: Let’s look at some language. We said that Wolves and Manchester United are on course to meet in the semi-finals.

Laura: On course means to be moving towards completing or achieving something. Moving in the right direction.

Jack: Wolves and United won their most recent matches to make a meeting between the two more likely in the semi-finals.

Rich: They are only on course towards this meeting though because they still need to win their quarter-final matches to make this happen.

Laura: Another phrase we used in that headline was to get through. Manchester City, Manchester United and Wolves all got through to the next round of the competition.

Jack: The phrasal verb get through has lots of meanings but one of them means to reach the next stage of a competition.

Rich: All three teams got through to the next round but who will get through to the final?

Laura: OK. We’ve looked at three stories and six bits of vocabulary in our headlines. The words and phrases we’ve looked at are: tie, convincing, on aggregate, book a place in the next round, on course and get through.

Jack: Have a listen to the headlines again and see if you understand the vocabulary we’ve looked at. 

Prediction

Laura: It’s time for our Premier League prediction. 

Jack: We’re going to stick with Manchester City’s bid to win the Champions League for the first-ever time.

Rich: We successfully predicted that they’d get through their tie against Real Madrid even though we thought it’d finish in a draw.

Laura: It’s Lyon from France next, in Portugal. Everyone thought City would be playing Juventus but the French team got a shock win. What do you think will happen, Rich?

Rich: I think Lyon’s surprise win against Juventus will work in City’s favour. There is no doubt that City will prefer playing the French team instead of Cristiano Ronaldo’s Juventus. City are stronger than Lyon all over the pitch but if they underestimate them they will lose. They have to play in the same way as they played against Madrid. If they do this I think it will be another convincing win for City. Final score: Manchester City 2-0 Lyon.

Jack: Let’s see if City can book their place in the Champions League semi-finals.

Laura: So, that’s our prediction. What’s yours? Do you agree? You can make your prediction for all the Champions League and Europa League ties on the Premier Skills English website.

Language Challenge

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

Jack: Earlier we used the phrase to get through. The word get is very common and there are lots of phrasal verbs that use the word get.

Laura: Here are three sentences which use phrasal verbs with get. Can you complete each sentence?

Rich: It usually takes a while for players and fans to get **** a cup final defeat.

Jack: I find it really difficult to get **** to work on Mondays especially after a relaxing weekend. 

Laura: I want to get **** for a few days soon. I’d like to spend some time next to the sea.

Rich: We want you to write the correct 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 answer on Apple Podcasts if that’s where you listen to us. Just write the answers in the review section and say hi.

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

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.