Learn English Through Football Podcast: Go Clear

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Learn English Through Football Podcast: Go Clear

In this week’s Learn English Through Football podcast we look at the phrase, ‘go clear’ when describing a team doing well in a match or in the league. We also look ahead to this weekend’s football, including a London derby: Tottenham Hotspur v Chelsea. 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 at: contact@learnenglishthroughfootball.com.

Hello

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

Welcome everyone to this week’s Learn English Through Football Podcast. The podcast for learners of English who love the beautiful game of football. My name is Damon and I am based in Tokyo, Japan. At the moment, the skies are grey and there’s a bit of rain, but that’s all good for my plants on the balcony! How about where you are? And how about in London where the other member of the Learn English Through Football team, Damian, is based? Damian, how are you doing?

DF: Hi Damon and hello to everyone listening – I hope you are all doing well. Well, the wether here in London is wet and windy but that’s okay as we were still able to play football this morning – I can’t remember the result though!

How is your football team doing? How did they get on this week? My favourite team Tottenham, they played in the Carabao Cup against the holders Newcastle and they were beaten two-nil. I think Damon’s team Liverpool also went out of that competition – maybe because we are both looking at bigger ones!

Now listener, remember that you can access all our posts at our new website address, which is now learnenglishthroughfootball.com. If you like what we do here, we’d love it if you could share it with your friends and give us ‘likes’ or ‘ratings’ on your favourite podcast platform!

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (from a Dulwich Hamlet fan)

DB: Thank you for that message, which was from a fan of Dulwich Hamlet and which mentioned our old name, Languagecaster.com. Why don’t you send in a stinger, a message like that, saying your name, which team you support, and ‘You are listening to Learn English Through Football.com’ in English or your language, so we can update our messages. It would be great to hear from you. Just record an audio and send it to contact@learnenglishthroughfootball.com.

We will have more stingers or messages throughout the show in different languages – try and guess what they are. We’ll let you know what they are at the end of the show.

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

DF: Right, on today’s show we are going to look at the phrase ‘to go clear‘ or ‘to go clear at the top‘. We will also hear from Damon in our predictions section when he will be looking at the Tottenham versus Chelsea game from the Premier League. I will then be explaining a football cliche based on that game.

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

Football Language: Go Clear

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DF: OK, I heard on the radio this afternoon that Arsenal went 7 points clear at the top of the Premier League table after their 2-0 win at Burnley. To be seven points clear means that there is now a gap of seven points between them and the team in second place. The idea around this phrase is to suggest that the team that has gone clear is in a strong position; they are leading the table or they are top or they are ahead of other teams. Of course, we can use numbers to describe how far clear the team is or how much of a lead they have. So, for example, Arsenal have gone seven points clear in England, while in Scotland Hearts are now nine points clear of Celtic in second place; that’s a bit of a surprise.

Of course, it’s not only related to the top of the table as we can say that a team has gone three points clear of the relegation places, for example. Or maybe we can say that after a win, the team has now gone three or four (or whatever the number is) points clear of the team in next position. To go seven points clear, for example.

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

DF: Right, let’s turn now to predictions and here’s Damon again with his predictions for the Tottenham versus Chelsea match.

Predictions: Tottenham v Chelsea

DB: Cheers Damian. How are you feeling about this one? It’s not the biggest London derby, but I wonder if it is the second biggest for Tottenham fans? I expect this to be a cracking game for the neutral and there should be quite a bit of needle, or aggression, in the game too. These two sides often produce intense games with strong challenges and lots of passion. Remember The Battle of The Bridge in 2016? 13 yellow cards and nine for Spurs!

I don’t think there will be that many cautions this time, but I do expect goals. I’m not going for the same scoreline as the Battle of the Bridge which was 2-2. I’m going to go 3-2 to Tottenham, simply because their defence seems a bit more secure than Chelsea’s, while both can score goals. Each side have 17 goals so far. So, an exciting game with Tottenham coming out winners and maybe moving up the table to second place.

Football Cliche: Lucky to get nil

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DF: Thanks Damon. I really don’t like this game as Spurs have a terrible record in this game – Chelsea always seem to get something from the match and leave us Spurs fans disappointed. We lost this one 1-0 but really we were lucky that we did not concede more – Chelsea could have scored two or three. There is a football cliche to describe a really poor performance by a team, ‘they were lucky to get nil‘. Of course nil means that a team have not scored a goal – nil-nil is a scoreless draw, for example. But if a team have been so bad and not really created any clear-cut chances or any chances at all –  then we might hear fans say this phrase, ‘they were lucky to get nil‘. Oh well, maybe next time…

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

DF: Do you want to practise using prediction phrases? Share your thoughts on what might happen in the games you’ll be watching this weekend. Head over to our site and leave a comment under this post or join the discussion in our forum. You can even record a voice note with your predictions if you’d like!

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

Contact

DB: And before we go, remember we have a massive glossary of football terms, with hundreds of expressions, phrases, and clichés about the beautiful game of football. And if you want to send in any new words that you have heard, again drop us a line at contact@learnenglishthroughfootball.com

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

Goodbye

DF: Yes, you are listening to the Learn English Through Football Podcast and that message was in Spanish. Did you guess the other languages you heard on today’s podcast? First, we had Chinese, then Danish and Dutch, before hearing from some Vietnamese speakers. As Damon said, send in a message in your language and we’ll add it to the show.

So, on the show today we looked at the phrase, ‘to go clear at the top’ and also the cliche, ‘they were lucky to get nil’ – how would you say these phrases in another language that you know? Let us know by dropping us a line at contact@learnenglishthroughfootball.com.

DB: Ta-ra!

DF: Bye bye! Enjoy all the football.

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