Learn English Through Football

In this football language podcast we look back at one the contenders for goal of the tournament by the Czech Republic’s Patrik Schick and in particular how it was described in the press here in the UK. You can read a transcript for this podcast below, while you can also check out our glossary of footballing phrases here and visit our site to access all our previous posts and podcasts. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.
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Football Language Podcast: Euro 2020 Day 4 Patrik Schick’s Goal
DF: Hello everyone, this is Damian again from the Learning English Through Football team – I hope you are all doing well. This is our second football language podcast from day 4 of the Euros because we wanted to look at some of the language used to describe the second goal from the Czech Republic’s Patrik Schick in their 2-0 win over hosts Scotland in Group D. The Czech striker scored his second goal in the 52nd minute with a wonderstrike from over 49 metres – a record distance at the European Championships – but how was this goal described?
Was it a chip, a lob or a dink? Remember that a chip is when a player raises or lifts the ball when the ball is on the ground whereas a lob would be to raise the ball while the ball is off the ground and a dink would be a lifted shot or pass from a shorter distance. In this case, Schick hit the ball on the ground while it was moving first time so I am not sure if we can just call it a chip – I wonder if there is another term for this goal or even if we might call it a ‘Schick goal’ in the future?
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Spanish).
We decided to look at how some of the UK press described this contender for goal of the tournament from Schick and so we’ll start with The Guardian who called it, ‘… a booming curler over the keeper’. The word ‘curler‘ describes the direction of the shot – the player curled or bent the ball over the keeper – while the word ‘booming‘ describes the power with which Schick hit the ball; a booming strike would be a really hard shot for example. The BBC described Schick’s shot as an ‘incredible halfway-line goal‘ which focuses on the distance rather than the power or accuracy but the report then goes on to say, ‘his astonishing arching shot arrowed over Marshall‘ which uses the verb ‘to arrow‘ meaning speed and accuracy while an ‘arching shot’ is one that would trav...