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How To Talk About Football/Soccer! Fun English Lesson 2020.

Smashing English! Free and Fun English Lessons!11:20

Transcription

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening! Welcome to Smashing English. Before we start this video, be sure to subscribe because I make new videos all the time, and I don't want you to miss any. So, with that said, let's get on with the video!

Today we are learning about football. Now, football is a pretty big deal in lots of places around the world, so today I'm going to teach you all of the things that I know about football, which is not a lot really... um, I think I'm gonna need some help. I love football! I shall leave you in very capable hands. Good luck.

Welcome to your crash course in football! First, let's talk about "the pitch." First things first, this is called "the halfway line," and this in the middle is called "the centre circle." So you might know that in the middle of the centre circle, that is where the game begins, so we call that "kickoff." So that is when the game "kicks off." We also use this term for asking when will the game begin; so, "When is the kickoff time?" or "When is kickoff?" "Are Liverpool playing today?" "Yeah mate yeah, they're playing Leeds." "Ah right yeah... when's kickoff then?" "They're kicking off in about... oh, in half an hour!"

Either end of the pitch, we have two very important things in football, and they're called "the goals," so we have one goal, and we have another goal; we have two goals in a game of football. So the goal is made out of four things. We have two "posts," a "crossbar," and we have a "net." If a player was to hit either the crossbar or the posts, we would say they've "hit the woodwork" because usually in the olden days the posts and the crossbar would be made out of wood, so we would call it "the woodwork."

Both goals are surrounded by "the penalty box," as you can see right here. And inside the penalty box, there are two very important things: there is "the penalty spot." Now the penalty spot is where "penalty kicks" are taken, so if your team is given a penalty, that means that you kick the ball from that spot. Any Manchester United fans watching, you'll know quite a lot about these recently! And the second thing that is inside the penalty box is the "six yard box," so there is a smaller box inside of the penalty box, and that is where the goalkeeper can take his goal kicks from.

Now there are four "corners" around the pitch in the corners, and we just call these "the corners," so we have four corners, and they are usually shown by a "corner flag." And last but not least, on the side of the pitch where the managers and the substitutes sit, insert picture here, we call that "the bench" because usually in the olden days people would sit on a bench, or sometimes you might hear people calling it "the dugout" because, I don't know, 50 years ago people used to literally dig a hole, and the players would sit in the hole... kind of picture to show it... there we are... "the dugout"! And where the fans sit, we call this "the stands," so usually a stadium has four stands around the pitch, but if you're a Manchester City fan, you're probably sat at home having a nice takeaway.

Okay, so let's move on. Now let me give you some very common footballers' positions. So every team has to have a "goalkeeper" or a "keeper" or a "goalie." In front of the goalkeeper, we have "the defence." Now in the defence, you can have a "left back," that is a defender who plays on the left side of the pitch, and then we have a "right back," these are players who play on the right side of the pitch, and usually in between those we have "two centre backs," so we have left back, centre back, centre back, right back. And the defence is basically there to stop the other team scoring some goals.

Moving up the pitch in front of the defence, we have "the midfielders." Okay, so the midfielders are the ones who play in the middle of the field, so in this formation we have a "left midfielder," so those are the midfielders who play on the left side of midfield, we have a "right midfielder," and those guys play on the right of the midfield, and we have two centre midfielders, so those are "centre mids," sometimes we call them, "centre mids."

At the top of the pitch, we usually have players called "strikers," so we can call them strikers, we can also call them "centre forwards," so they are forwards, and they are in the centre. "Centre forwards." Some famous strikers for you are Pele, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lionel Messi. And last but not least, we also have players in the attack who play on the left and on the right. So we call those "left wingers" or "right wingers."

And finally, let me just give you some essential words that will help you talk about any football game. So let's start with scoring a goal. Usually, we don't even say "scoring a goal," we usually just say "scored" or "score." So, "Lionel Messi scored last night." And here are some words to describe a very very very good goal. We have "screamer." "Oh, it's a screamer!!", "Belter." "Oh, what a belter!", "Worldie!" "Oh, that's a worldie!" So, "to score" is the verb, but we also have in the noun form, "a score." So at the end of a football match, you will have "a score." Will it be one - nil? Two - nil? Three - one? Seven - two? Eight - six?

And here are some very important words to describe how a player will score a goal. If he scores it with his head, we call that "a header." If he scores without the ball touching the ground, we call that "a volley." If a player scores a goal and they're very very close to the goal, we call that "a tap in," like they're just tapping it in. And if a player scores a goal by kicking it over his head, we call that "a bicycle kick."

Next up we have "an assist." This is the word that's given to the player who passes the ball to the person who scores. So a goal might have the "goal scorer" and "the assist." Next we have "clean sheet." So a "clean sheet" is something that you get or something that you have. If a goalkeeper doesn't let any goals in in a game, they get a clean sheet; that's what we call it. So if a goalkeeper is very very good, then he will have a lot of clean sheets.

Next we have "hat trick." A hat trick is a word we use when one player scores three goals in one game. So if a player has already scored two goals in the game, then the commentator might say, "Oh, he's on for a hat-trick here," and there is another very good word for you there: "commentator." A commentator is a person who describes the game either on the tv or on the radio.

Next we have "tackle." "To tackle" is when one player tries to get the ball from another player, but if that player makes an unsuccessful tackle and hurts the other player, we call that "a foul." And if you make a bad foul, you might get from "the referee" a "yellow card" or a "red card." A yellow card is usually a warning to the player, but a red card means that you get "sent off."

The next term we have is "dive." If a player dives, it means that they have tried to cheat in the game, so they have pretended to be fouled and fallen to the ground. Here's an example of when we would use that word: "He didn't even foul him; that's a dive." The next word is "substitution." A substitution is something that you make, so we "make a substitution," and that is basically when one player leaves the pitch and somebody from the bench comes on to the pitch.

Next up we have a "free kick." A free kick is when a player is allowed to kick the ball freely from the spot where they've been fouled. A "penalty" is when somebody has been fouled inside the penalty box, remember that? Yeah, there it is. And if the player gets fouled within the penalty box, then that means they get to take a "penalty kick." And finally, we have "handball." A handball is when the ball hits a player's hand, so nobody apart from the goalkeeper is allowed to touch the ball with their hands.

And in case you're wondering, just to let you know, the best football team in the whole world is Liverpool—okay, okay, well thank you so much. We've learned so much today; thank you very much for teaching us. So if you enjoyed this video, please press subscribe and please give it a like, and we'll be back soon with more videos in the future. Thank you so much for watching. Ta-ta!