Weekly Football Phrase: Man and Ball

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Football Phrase of the Week: Man and Ball

The weekly football phrase we introduce in this podcast is ‘man and ball’ which is a phrase used in football to describe tackles. 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 everybody and welcome to LearnEnglishThroughFootball.com’s weekly football language podcast. My name’s Damon and I am one half of the LearnEnglishThroughFootball.com team and based in Tokyo. Damian the other half is half a world away from me in London. I hope the weather is as nice as it is here in Japan, which is cool but sunny.

We hope you are well and that you have been enjoying the football this week. I haven’t as my team Liverpool are on a dreadful run of form, with another defeat. However, I did enjoy El Clasico in Spain between, of course, Real Madrid and Barcelona. And this week’s phrase comes from that game.

And the phrase is ‘man and ball‘.

Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (in Spanish)

DF: Yes you are listening to Languagecaster.com, also known as LearnEnglishThroughFootball.com, and that message was in Spanish.

Man and Ball

DB: Right, the Real Madrid v Barcelona game was a great game to watch if you are a Real Madrid fan, they won 2-1, or a neutral. Before the game, these were the top two sides and they delivered an exciting game, with of course lots of passion. When rivals meet, there are often strong tackles. A strong tackle is a fair tackle but a physical one, and there is probably contact. Today’s phrase is connected with tackling.

I was interested to hear the phrase used by a commentator, ‘ball and man‘, which is a variation of the more common phrase ‘man and ball’. If a player takes man and ball, the player making the tackle makes contact with the opposing player and the ball too. This can be seen as fair and it can also be called as a foul. It is a foul if the referee thinks the only reason the player has the ball is because their foot, or leg, made contact with the opposing player first.

Embed from Getty Images

Here is an example of its use in the Daily Telegraph: ‘Ollie Watkins was bounding towards the edge of the six-yard box but was intercepted by the defender who, at full-stretch, took man and ball.’

In this example, the defender tackled Ollie Watkins by making contact with the player and the ball.

In the Real Madrid versus Barcelona game, the commentator described a tackle by Dean Huijsen as ‘ball and man‘, meaning the player first touched the ball, but afterwards tackled the player, knocked the player over. The commentator was hinting that it was fair tackle, as the ball was touched first.

The Ball is There to Be Won

This is a bit of a grey zone, and these tackles are often called as a foul. However, you will often hear pundits say it was a fair tackle because he or she got the ball first, or the ball was there to be won. If the ball is there to be won, it means the speaker thinks it is fair for a player to attempt a tackle, even if it means after the tackle they kick or push over the opposing player.

Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (in Catalan)

Thank you for that message which was in Catalan. If you can, please send us a message like that in your language. We’d love to get more languages on our show. Just record a message saying, ‘You are listening to the Learn English Through Football Podcast’, and we’ll add it to the show. Our contact email is admin@languagecaster.com.

Goodbye

DB: Right, on today’s show we looked at the phrase ‘man and ball’ often used with the verb ‘take’ – take man and ball, used to describe a strong tackle. We also talked about ‘the ball is there to be won’, meaning it’s OK to try to get the ball, even if it needs some aggression in the tackle.

Before we go, drop us a line at contact@learnenglishthroughfootball.com if you have a comment or leave one under the post at LearnEnglishThroughFootball.com. And of course let us know if you have any ideas for football language or want us to explain any football words or phrases that you’ve heard.

Enjoy all the football this week and we’ll be back soon. Ta-ra!