Learn English Through Football

Football Language Podcast: 2019-20 Review of Tottenham’s Season – In this football language podcast we review some of the highs and lows from Tottenham’s 2019-20 season. We will look at some of the language from the good, the bad and the ugly parts of the club’s season. Don’t forget we have hundreds more explanations of football language in our football glossary. You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the file below – you can also subscribe and listen to all our football-language podcasts. There is also a transcript so you can improve your English by reading as you listen, or if you are a teacher of English you can use the transcript to make several activities for your learners. If you have questions or comments, email us at: admin@languagecaster.com (Damian=DF)

Hello
DF: Hello everybody. My name is Damian and I am one half of the languagecaster team and you’re listening to the Learn English Through Football Podcast. Now, the 2019-20 season has finally finished – almost exactly a year after the opening games in the middle of August last year and this short podcast looks back at my favourite team’s 2019-20 season – I’ll be reviewing Tottenham’s season and in particular some of the language that emerged from the good, the bad and the ugly of the Spurs season. Now, we have a transcript with this short report, as well as some vocabulary support, so you can improve your English by reading as you listen, or if you are a teacher of English you can use the transcript to make several activities for your learners. And if you have any questions, suggestions or comments then you can email us at: admin@languagecaster.com.
Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster.com (in Vietnamese)
Introduction
DF: Way back on August 10th in 2019 (almost a year ago), I went along to the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to watch the opening game of the 2019-20 season in fairly high spirits. After all, we had reached our first ever Champions League final only 10 weeks before and had then bought three players in the summer transfer window – our first signings in nearly two years – which included the much coveted French midfielder Tanguy Ndombele. Spurs had finished in the Champions League positions in the previous four years and while there was no talk of a title push, there was plenty of optimism for the new season ahead. Spurs went on to beat newly-promoted Aston Villa 3-1 on that opening day although they did not play anywhere near their best which, unfortunately for us Spurs fans was a sign of things to come.
Move forward to the end of the Premier League season in July and Spurs scraped a 1-1 draw away at Crystal Palace to finish in 6th place in the table – 7 points short of a Champions League place and a whopping – a huge – 40 points behind champions Liverpool and this was only thanks to a strong post-lockdown run of games. They’ve changed their manager,