This Week: On your marks, get set, go!

On your marks, get set, go!

Laura: Hello my name’s Laura and welcome to our weekly round-up section called ‘This Week’ on Premier Skills English.

Rich: Hi there. I’m Rich. We’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

Jack: And I’m Jack and we hope you are all well.

Laura: The Premier League season kicks off this week and I’m very excited. 

Rich: Yes, me too. Liverpool are going to walk it again.

Laura: City for me.

Jack: Arsenal have to be this season’s dark horses.

Laura: Arsenal? Really?

Rich: I suppose you’ve got to support your team.

Jack: We’re all hoping for a really good season for our teams but want we want most is to see some exciting matches and great goals by all the teams in the Premier League this season.

Laura: As always, we’ll take a look at our football headlines from the past seven days. This week we’re talking about the start of the Women’s Super League, Premier League transfers and international football. 

Rich: But, more importantly, our main aim is to focus on some football English for you to learn.

Jack: After each of our three football headlines we’ll focus on some useful bits of vocabulary and we’ll also have a Premier League prediction for you. 

Laura: And we want you to use and practise these words and phrases by interacting with Premier League fans from around the world in our comments section.

Rich: If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, you can leave your comments in the review section. We do read all the reviews and would love to hear from you.

Jack: You can find all of our latest content on the Premier Skills English homepage or the Premier Skills-British Council Facebook page. 

Laura: Don’t forget that we also have our weekly Premier Skills English podcast that is released every Friday. Every week we help you with some different vocabulary or an aspect of grammar.

Rich: Our latest podcast is called Premier League Previews: Arsenal to Leicester.

Laura: In the podcast, Rich interviews ten football Premier League fans about their clubs and how they feel about the new season.

Jack: We look at ten football phrases or cliches that these football fans use. You can find the lesson on the homepage on the Premier Skills English website. 

Laura: OK, you’re now going to hear our three headlines. After each headline, we’ll have a little discussion and look at some vocabulary. 

Rich: The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: to get off to a flyer, to mark your debut with a goal, to strike a deal, to clinch the signature of, respectively and the onion bag.

Jack: Later on we’ll also have a language challenge for you to have a go at so you need to be ready for that.

Headline 1

Rich: Gunners and Toffees off to a flyer

Jack: The Women’s Super League kicked off at the weekend and there were big wins for Arsenal and Everton. Arsenal beat Reading 6-1 with Dutch international Jill Roord getting hat trick. Everton won 4-0 away at Bristol City with captain Lucy Graham netting twice and French international Valerie Gauvin marking her debut with a goal. There were also opening day wins for Manchester City and Brighton.

Laura: There is a lot of excitement around the Women’s Super League this season. The growing success of the league has seen players arrive from twenty different countries this summer.

Rich: Some of the world’s best have arrived including World Cup winners for the USA such as Sam Mewis and Rose Lavelle at Manchester City and one of Europe’s best players - the Danish international Pernille Harder who is now at Chelsea.

Jack: And international players have also arrived from Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, France, Canada and Spain amongst others.

Rich: And remember you can watch the matches, highlights and goals on the FA player. It’s free to sign up.

Laura: Before we look at some vocabulary from the headline let’s look at the title we have used for this week’s podcast. We’ve called it on your marks, get set, go.

Jack: This phrase comes from athletics and is used to tell runners to get ready and then to start a race.

Rich: A more informal phrase that is used mainly for children and races is ready, steady, go.

Laura: We’ve used this phrase this week because Premier League clubs are on their marks and getting set and ready to go this weekend.

Jack: Back to that first headline. We said Arsenal and Everton have got off to a flyer.

Rich: To get off to a flyer means to begin something very well or make a very good start to something.

Laura: We can also use the phrase to get off to a flying start.

Jack: Arsenal won 6-1 and Everton won 4-0.

Rich: Arsenal got off to a flyer. Everton got off to a flying start.

Laura: The second phrase we want to look at from our first headline is to mark your debut with a goal.

Jack: Your debut is the first time you play for a club. The collocation we usually use is to make your debut. Valerie Gauvin made her debut for Everton at the weekend.

Rich: The verb mark can also be used to celebrate and is often quite formal. We can say things like the 50th anniversary of the company’s founding was marked with a small celebration of all the staff.

Laura: We use it in football when a footballer scores on their debut. Valerie Gauvin marked her debut with a goal. 

Jack: Let’s move on to our net headline.

Headline 2

Jack: More transfer deals being struck.

Laura: Clubs are getting their squads ready for Premier League kick-off this weekend and there will be some new names in the Premier League. Leeds United have smashed their transfer record to bring in Rodrigo for £27 million from Valencia, Chelsea have paid Bayer Leverkusen over £60 million for the German international Kai Hervertz and Everton look certain to clinch the signature of the Colombian, James Rodriguez from Real Madrid.

Rich: Soe exciting new players in the Premier League this season. I can’t wait to see those three players in action.

Jack: What a result for Everton if they can get James Rodriguez. 

Laura: Let’s look at some language. In the headline, we spoke about deals being struck. 

Rich: To strike a deal means to come to an agreement.

Jack: Leeds United struck a deal with Valencia to bring Rodrigo to the Premier League. The two clubs came to an agreement and Rodrigo signed for Leeds.

Laura: The other phrase we want to look at is to clinch the signature of. In the headline, we said that Everton look certain to clinch the signature of James Rodriguez.

Rich: Your signature is how you sign or write your name. You often have to add your signature when you sign official documents. To complete a football transfer lots of documents have to be signed by the player and the clubs involved.

Laura: So we often talk about the signature of a player as a synonym of a transfer or signing of a player.

Jack: To clinch can mean to succeed in winning something. You might hear something like this in a football report: Manchester United clinched victory in the last minute when …

Laura: Everton have succeeded in completing the transfer of James Rodriguez to their club. They have clinched the signature of James Rodriguez.

Rich: Let’s move on to our third and final headline.

Headline 3

Laura: Nations League kicks off in Europe.

Rich: The second Nations League kicked off last weekend with Premier League players getting on the scoresheets for their countries. Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling and Tottenham’s Steven Bergwijn got winners for England and the Netherlands respectively, Chelsea’s Timo Werner and Manchester CIty’s Ilkay Gundogan scoring for Germany, West Ham’s Andriy Yarmolenko and City’s Oleksandr Zinchenko netting for Ukraine, and Wolves’ Diogo Jota put the ball in the onion bag for Portugal.

Jack: Lots of international action last weekend with Premier League players in action. Do you think it’s a good way to warm up for the Premier League?

Laura: I’m not sure. These matches are definitely more competitive than pre-season friendlies but I’m sure Premier League managers would prefer to have all their players on the training pitch in the run up to the start of the season.

Rich: Let’s look at some language. We said Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling and Tottenham’s Steven Bergwijn got winners for England and the Netherlands respectively. 

Jack: Respectively means in the same order that has been mentioned before so in this example, we are talking about Raheem Sterling getting a winner for England and Steve Bergwijn getting a winner for the Netherlands because that is the order that the players were mentioned.

Laura: Here’s another example: Manchester United, West Ham and Arsenal used to be called Newton Heath, Thames Ironworks and Woolwich Arsenal respectively.

Jack: The next phrase is a bit silly but Rich has wanted to include it in the podcast for a long time. The phrase is the onion bag. The onion bag refers to the net so to put the ball in the onion bag means to score a goal.

Laura: Why is it called the onion bag?

Rich: Well, because we usually buy onions in bags that look like nets and the goal is a net. 

Jack: I’m not sure onions are bought in bags that look like nets everywhere. The onion bag - what a strange phrase. 

Laura: OK. We’ve looked at three stories and six bits of vocabulary in our headlines. The words and phrases we’ve looked at are: off to a flyer, to mark your debut with a goal, to strike a deal, to clinch the signature of, respectively and the onion bag.

Prediction

Jack: The Premier League season kicks off this weekend with eight Premier League matches.

Laura: The fixtures are: Fulham v Arsenal, Crystal Palace v Southampton, West Ham v Newcastle, Liverpool v Leeds, West Brom v Leicester, Tottenham v Everton, Brighton v Chelsea and Sheffield United v Wolves.

Jack: Every week we predict the result of one of the weekend’s Premier League matches and we want you to say whether you agree or disagree with our prediction.

Laura: But you can also talk about all the other matches and predict the results in our comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Jack: It’s also a good place to practise your football English and talk to other Premier League fans.

Laura: OK, Rich. Which match are you going to focus on for the opening weekend.

Rich: The opening day of the season sees the Premier League Champions - Liverpool - it’s nice to say that - take on the Champions of the Championship - Leeds United. This will be Leeds’ first Premier League match since 2004 so it’s a big occasion and in Marcelo Bielsa, they have a manager for the big occasion and he will certainly have his team prepared at Anfield. However, they couldn’t have asked for a more difficult match - away at the Champions. Liverpool will want to get their title defence off to a flyer but maybe, just maybe Leeds can catch the Champions cold so I’m going for a shock result. Final score: Liverpool 1-2 Leeds United.

Jack: I think this season will see lots of surprises but not in this one. Two-nil to Liverpool.

Laura: Remember we want you to make your predictions on the Premier Skills English website.

Language Challenge

Rich: To finish up the show we’ve got a quick language challenge connected to this week’s vocabulary.

Jack: Earlier we spoke about marking your debut with a goal and we’re going to look at three more football phrases with the word debut. 

Laura: These are quite difficult. Write your answers in the comments section and if your answers are correct you will see that we have replaced your answer with asterisks so other listeners can guess too. Here are the three sentences.

Rich: This is her _____ debut. She’s come on as a sub a couple of time but this is the first time she’s in the starting line up.

Jack: This is his ______ debut. He’s only ever played in cup competitions before.

Laura: It will be her ________ debut if she plays. She’s never been called up by her country before.

Rich: We want you to write the correct answers on the Premier Skills English website where we have some more questions and activities connected to this week’s show.

Laura: Or write your answer on Apple Podcasts if that’s where you listen to us. Just write the answers in the review section and say hi.

Jack: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope that all of you stay fit and healthy.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.