Learn English Through Football Podcast: Book their place

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Learn English Through Football Podcast: Book their place

In this week’s football-language podcast we look at a phrase connected to qualifying for a competition or tournament: book their place after some recent 2026 World Cup qualifiers. You can read the 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 about the phrase or our podcast then you can contact us here.

Hello

DF: You are listening to the Learn English Through Football Podcast.

DF: Hello everyone I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the football. My name is Damian and I am based here in London where the weather is still quite warm which is great. What is the weather like where you are?

Now, football is currently on an international break as there are 2026 World Cup qualifiers taking place all around the world; so this means there is hardly any domestic or league football happening. Instead, we have qualifying matches for the 2026 World Cup tournament and remember that we only have 10 months to go until that kicks off!

And on today’s podcast we will look at some language that has emerged from these qualifiers, including: to book a place. We will also look at some predictions language as we try and predict the big World Cup qualifier between Serbia and England.

Stinger: (A football fan from Ghana (Twi language))

Right, before we move on to talk about some football language, just to let you know that we are still making some changes to our site. Remember, that we are now known as learnengishthroughfootball.com after changing our domain name. This means we are no longer using languagecaster.com but don’t worry you can still find us even if you still click on the old name and you will still hear and see languagecaster on many parts of our site and hear it on our podcast.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Spanish)

DF: Yes, that message was in Spanish and we will have some more stingers or messages throughout the show in different languages. Try and guess what languages they are and we will let you know what they are at the end of the show.

And of course it would be great if you could send us a message in your own language – just tell us, ‘You are listening to the Learn English through football podcast’ in any language that you know.

Right, here’s another stinger for you and I will give you a clue, this language is spoken in Asia and their national team have already qualified for the 2026 World Cup finals next year.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Korean) 

Football Language: Book a place

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OK, so the World Cup qualifiers are currently taking place – how is your country doing? Have they already qualified? Do they have a good chance of qualifying for the finals next year? Or are they already out (or eliminated)? Remember that to qualify for a tournament means that a team will play in that tournament; tey have beaten other teams to get there. So, teams that qualify for the 2026 World Cup will play in that competition next summer. We did a podcast a couple of months ago on the different forms of the word, ‘qualify’, including qualified, qualifier and qualification, as well as looking at the differences between qualify for and qualify from. For example, Japan qualified for the 2026 World Cup; they qualified from the Asian Confederation.

Now, another way of saying qualify in football is ‘to book a place‘. Now, to book something is to reserve or to keep something. So, for example, maybe you want to book a ticket to see a game or maybe book a hotel room so you can travel to see a game and this means that the ticket or the  room is yours – you have booked or reserved it. We sometimes add the preposition ‘in’ after this phrase when we want to show what the team has qualified for; what tournament or competition they will play in. So, for example, we can say that Japan have qualified for the 2026 World Cup or we can say that they have booked their place in the 2026 World Cup.

I suppose that book a place in a tournament is usually, though not always, used soon after a team has actually qualified. So, for example, during this international break, the Moroccan national team booked their place in next year’s tournament after defeating Niger at the weekend. They have won all six of their qualifying matches (that’s a 100% record) and cannot be caught by the other teams. In fact, they have qualified with three games to spare. This means that even though there are three more games, or qualifiers, in the group they cannot be caught; they are guaranteed to finish top of the group and qualify for the World Cup. Congratulations to Morocco and it looks like Egypt will also book their place in next year’s finals if they can win their next match next week.

So far 17 countries have qualified for the World Cup: the three host nations (Mexico, Canada and the USA), while 14 other countries have also booked their places: six teams from Asia, one from Oceania, one from Africa and six from South America (CONMEBOL). Only another 31 places to go!

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Hindi) 

Predictions: Serbia v England

DF: OK, now it’s time for predictions.

Last week I looked at the match between Liverpool and Arsenal and I thought it would be a draw. But I was wrong as Liverpool won with an amazing free kick near the end of the game from Dominik Szoboszlai which leaves them as the only team with 100% record in the Premier League. So, Damon, the other member of the learnenglishthroughfootball.com team, is no doubt very happy indeed!

So, how abut this week’s game? Well, England travel to Serbia in the UEFA World Cup qualifier this week which is their biggest test so far in the group. They have already won four out of four matches but Serbia have seven points from nine so this will be a tough game for England. Although England have not been playing well I think they will run out 2-1 winners ; yes, England will win 2-1.

So, the phrase to run out 2-1 winners means that i think England will win the game by two goals to one. To run out 2-1 winners.

And how about practising your predictions language with us? What do you think will happen in this game or other games that you are watching? Let us know by coming along to our site and leaving a comment below this post or on our forum; it’s a really good way to practise some of your writing. You can also practise some speaking – maybe leave a voice note as well! And we’ll be happy to give you some feedback on this.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Italian)

Contact

DB: Right, remember you can contact us if you have any questions about the language of football or if you have some feedback on our podcast. Check out our website – remember, it’s now Learn English through football – and explore our Football Language Forum, where you can ask and answer questions about all kinds of football language. Now this week on our site we have had a question on the origin of the term ‘byline‘ from Just Jack who asked: ‘When defining the colloquialism “byline,” no one has ever referred to how this term came about. It’s never been in the Laws of The Game (that’s Law 1). So why did commentators begin using it? Where’d it come from? Even as professional referees we’ve never used it.’ That’s a great question and if anyone has any suggestions on the history of this phrase or when it started to appear, then please join in the conversation and let us know.

Don’t forget, we also have a huge glossary of football terms, with hundreds of expressions, phrases, and clichés all about the beautiful game of football.

Now, we also have explanations and examples of some of the football language we have used in today’s show and you can find that by coming along to this post on Learn English Through Football.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Dutch)

Goodbye

DF: Yes, you are listening to Languagecaster (or as we are now know, the Learn English Through Football Podcast) and that message, or stinger, was in Dutch. How about the other ones? Did you guess the languages? We started off with Twi from Ghana, then we heard Spanish, Korean – that’s the Asian team that’s qualified already for the World Cup, Hindi and Italian. Well done if you managed to get any of those right and of course if you’d like to send on another stinger or message in your own language we’d love to hear from you. Remember: ‘You are listening to the Learn English Through football podcast’ in any language that you know.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (from a Vasco da Gama fan)

DF: Right, let us know if you hear or see any of the phrases or words that we have talked about on this week’s show including, ‘book a place in a tournament‘. How would you say these phrases in another language that you know, for example?

Enjoy all the football this weekend and we’ll be back later this week with another weekly football expression from the past weekend’s football. See you all again soon. Bye bye!

More Examples

1. 1. 1. Seventeen of the 48 places at the 2026 World Cup have been decided – with Morocco becoming the first African team to book their place. (BBC.co.uk September 4 2025)
      2. Morocco officially became the first and only (so far) African team to qualify for the World Cup during game week six, and the Atlas Lions certainly progressed in some style, trouncing poor Niger 5-0 to book their place among the elite. (ESPN.co.uk September 5 2025)

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