Learn English Through Football

This football language podcast looks back at Day 9 of the 2020 European Championships. We explain some phrases connected with talking about the woodwork. To do this, we focus on the Portugal versus Germany game. 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. (DB=Damon)
Frame of the Goal – Football Language: Euro 2020 – Day 9
DB: You’re listening to languagecaster.com’s football language Euro 2020 podcast. Hi there everyone. My name is Damon, one half of the languagecaster team? How are things with you? On this show, I’m going to talk about how to talk about the woodwork in football, and I’ll be focusing on the match between Portugal and Germany in Group F.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Swedish).
Woodwork
DB: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster and that message was in Swedish.
So, day nine and the match between Portugal and Germany. What a game! I hope you had a chance to watch it. Six goals and a game full of incidents. There were a brace of, or two, own goals by Portugal in the space of five minutes, a goal chalked off, which means disallowed, stunning counter attacks, and exciting play in the box, especially by Germany.
But I want to talk about the near misses, the shots that nearly found the net. We had two examples of the ball hitting the woodwork in the match, so let’s take a look at those incidents and the football language to describe them.
First, in the 78th minute, with Portugal trailing Germany by two goals at 2-4, Renato Sanches smashed a shot which hit the woodwork. This is how the Guardian minute-by-minute described it.
“They play it short. Sanches, the substitute, thunders a fantastic shot from distance which crashes back off the frame of the goal.”
The Frame of the Goal
DB: In this description the writer uses ‘the frame of the goal’ instead of woodwork. Woodwork and the frame are  general terms that describe the whole goal – the two vertical posts and the horizontal bar. These three pieces make the woodwork, the frame of the goal.
When describing the ball hitting the woodwork we can use the verb ‘to hit’ – to hit the frame, to hit the woodwork. In the example from the Guardian we have ‘to crash’. You could say the shot crashed against the woodwork, or crashed back off the post for example. Smash could be used instead of crash with the same meaning – a hard shot against the woodwork.
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So, Sanches’ shot crashed back off the frame of the goal. It actually hit the post,