Learn English Through Football

In this football language podcast we look at some of the words and phrases from the recent Nations League semi-final and final that took place in Italy. We use the UEFA.com official site to help us do this. 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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Learning English Through Football Podcast: 2021 Nations League Review
DF: Hello everyone, this is Damian from the Languagecaster.com team here in a rather chilly London. I hope you are all doing well and enjoying all the international football that is taking place at the moment – indeed many of you might have heard Damon’s recent podcast in which he looked at the 2022 World Cup qualifier between Estonia and Wales and in particular the phrase poked home. On this podcast we also look at some more language from the international break but this time we look at phrases from the recent Nations League tournament in Italy. And in order to do this, we use the UEFA.com official site match reports.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Italian).
OK, so for those who don’t know or don’t remember, the Nations League is a UEFA-organised tournament which has meant fewer friendlies and more competitive matches in Europe. The top four section winners in Group A met in Italy in two semi-finals to decide the winner of the 2021 Nations League title. So the hosts Italy played Spain and Belgium faced France with France then defeating Spain in the final to become the second Nations League winners after Portugal did so two years previously. The quality of the the games, apart from the dead rubber of the third and fourth place game, was incredible as all four teams went for it – they went out all attack in trying to win the tournament.
Let’s take a look at some of the language used to describe these performances, starting with the Italy-Spain game.