Learn English Through Football

In this football language post we look at some of the language used to describe some of Ronaldo’s recent late goals for Manchester United in the Champions League. We’ll be looking at many phrases including, ‘trademark header‘; ‘volleyed in‘; ‘breathless‘ and ‘bundle home‘. There is a transcript with this listening activity along with some vocabulary practice and you can also check out our football glossary and football cliches pages for hundreds more explanations of the language of soccer. If you have questions or comments about this or any other phrase then email us at: admin@languagecaster.com.
Learning English Through Football Podcast: Ronaldo’s Late Goals
DF: Hello everyone, this is Damian from the Learning English Through Football team. I hope we are all doing well and enjoying the football. How did your favourite team get on this week? Did you watch any of the European matches that took place this week? Congratulations on the four teams who qualified for the Champions League knock-out stages: Ajax, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Liverpool – no doubt Damon will be happy! My team Tottenham are involved in the Europa Conference League – that’s the third tier of European football – and we defeated Dutch side Vitesse 3-2 in a rollercoaster of a game – so it’s going up and down. Some moments it was great; others it wasn’t so good. But of course that wasn’t the big news coming out of Tottenham this week because we now have a new manager as former Inter and Chelsea boss Antonio Conte has joined the club after Nuno was fired or sacked last weekend. A week in football is a long time indeed.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (Dutch fan).
Now, one of the big games in Europe this week was the Champions League qualifier between Atalanta and Manchester United which ended in a 2-2 draw thanks to Man United’s Cristiano Ronaldo who scored an equaliser in the 91st minute. And as this was not the first time the Portuguese superstar has done this in the Champions League this season we thought we’d look at how some of the UK press described some of these late Ronaldo goals.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (Spanish fan).
Now, don’t forget there is of course a transcript to go with this podcast – it’s great for teaching and learning English – and if you have any questions or comments about any of the football language in this report then you can contact us here at: admin@languagecaster.com. OK, let’s look at some of the language used to describe these late goals from Cristiano Ronaldo.
Manchester United 2-1 Villareal (Ronaldo 95th minute)...