Football Phrase of the Week: Record-equalling 20th league title

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Football Phrase of the Week: Record-equalling 20th league title

In this football phrase of the week we look at the expression, ‘Record-equalling 20th league title‘ after Liverpool were crowned champions of the 2024-25 Premier League season. You can read the transcript for this post 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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DF: Hello everyone. This is Damian from the Languagecaster team and I hope you are all doing well. Welcome to this week’s football phrase when we look back at some of the football language from the weekend. And today we will explain the noun phrase, ‘Record-equalling 20th league title‘ after Liverpool’s 5-1 thrashing of Tottenham in the Premier League at the weekend. Oh dear, it’s difficult being a Tottenham fan! And if you’re wondering why Liverpool fan – and of course my  Languagecaster colleague – Damon is not doing this post – he is no doubt still celebrating somewhere in Tokyo!

Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (in Dutch)

DF: So, Liverpool were crowned Premier League champions at the weekend after easily defeating Tottenham 5-1. The Reds only needed a point to lift the trophy but, after an early scare when Spurs opened the scoring, they eventually ran out comfortable winners on the day to win their 20th League title. Congratulations to them – they have won the title with four games to go (four games to spare) – and were deserved winners.

Now, the number 20 is very important indeed as it is the same number of title wins as their great rivals Manchester United – both of these teams have now won the most titles in English football. Liverpool won their first title at the start of the 20th Century with United winning their first title a few years later in 1908.

Now, since I have been watching football, these two sides have dominated English football; Liverpool in the 1970s and ’80s and Manchester United in the 1990s and 2000s. To give you some idea of their  dominance, the third best team in the list of title winners is Arsenal and they have 13, while my favourite team Tottenham have only won the title on two occasions (1951 and 1961).

So, by winning this season’s title, the Reds of Liverpool now have the same number of titles as United and as they both have the record (they are top of the list of winners), we can say that they equalled United’s record. In many of the newspapers over the weekend the phrase ‘record-equalling‘ was used to describe the title win – Liverpool’s record-equalling 20th league title. 

Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (in Italian)

Yes, that message was in Italian, while we also heard from a Dutch speaker earlier on in the show.

So, in this week’s football expression we looked at the phrase, ‘Record-equalling 20th league title’ after Liverpool won their 20th League title at the weekend – the same number as Manchester United and these two sides are now the most successful in English football.

Do you know of any other similar examples with this phrase? And how would you say this phrase in another language that you know? If so, then add it to our forum or to the comments section below this post here at Languagecaster.com.

Enjoy all the football this week and we’ll see you again later on in our regular weekly language podcast when we’ll be looking back at the Champions League semi-final first legs and looking ahead to the weekend’s fixtures. And of course we’ll also be explaining more football language – we have another special guest interview talking about the language of football. See you soon. Bye bye.

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