Football Phrase of the Week: Clear Goalscoring Opportunity

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Football Phrase of the Week: (to) Convert

In this football phrase of the week we look at the noun phrase, a clear goalscoring opportunity, a key phrase used in the FA Cup last weekend . 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.

DB: Hello everyone, and welcome to Languagecaster’s  Football Phrase of the Week. This is when we look back at a football phrase or some football language from the weekend. My name’s Damon, and I’ll be explaining the noun phrase,  a clear goalscoring opportunity, a key phrase from the FA Cup final between Crystal Palace and Manchester City last weekend.

Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (in Dutch)

DB: Yes, you are listening to Languagecaster and that message was in Dutch.

Clear Goalscoring Opportunity

DB: OK, this phrase is actually a phrase from the Laws of the Game. Under Law 12 – Fouls and Misconduct – it says a red card must be given if a player denies ‘the opposing team a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by committing a deliberate handball offence.’ Usually, this would be an outfield player, not a goalkeeper, perhaps stopping a shot from crossing the line with their hand.

However, in the FA Cup final Crystal Palace’s goalkeeper Henderson, handled the ball outside his area. He pushed the ball away from the Man City attacker Haaland. This is how the incident was described by Sksports.com: ‘On 24 minutes, Henderson handled the ball outside his box, palming it away from Erling Haaland as the Man City forward tried to race onto a pass.’

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Amazingly, the referee took no action and even more surprisingly VAR looked at the incident and decided it was not a clear goalscoring opportunity. The VAR officials, ‘judged that, as the ball was going away from goal, Haaland did not have a clear goalscoring chance (Skysports.com).’ Most pundits thought this was a mistake, as any striker who gets passed a goalkeeper, even if they are pushed wide, has a clear goal scoring chance. Crystal Palace went on to win the game 1-0, but Manchester City were furious.

Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (in Danish)

String of Saves

DB: So, Palace’s goalkeeper could stay on the pitch. He went on to make a string of great saves. A string of saves is a lot of saves, one after the other. Here is what the Mirror wrote: ‘The Crystal Palace hero made a string of saves, including to deny Omar Marmoush from the penalty spot, as his club won their first ever major trophy at Wembley.’

A lot of commentators and pundits said that Crystal Palace deserved to win the game even if they were lucky not to have their keeper sent off. But I am sure if you are a Manchester City fan, you would think that if Crystal Palace were down to 10 men with their keeper sent off and 7o minutes of the game left to play, the result would have been different.

I think they may be right, but congratulations to the Eagles for their first ever major trophy, even if they did need a bit of luck!

We’ll be back later in the week with more football language. Ta-ra!

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Football Language Glossary