If you don’t know anything about soccer, don’t worry because with this football vocabulary you can learn how to talk like an expert!
English people love soccer and fans live and breathe it. Every country has a national sport and soccer is Britain’s. We may not have the best players or teams in the world but very few people haven’t heard of Manchester United or David Beckham.
Soccer is a great small talk topic for men and women. In fact, it’s one of the most common at work. Take a look at this video of 3 people in a company talking about soccer:
Soccer talk
A typical soccer conversation often starts with:
Did you see the match last night?
=The big match that was on TV last night. It was probably featuring 2 famous teams high in the league such as Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal etc.
What was___thinking of though?
=Someone did something bad and you ask the other person about it.
That referee was an idiot
=A referee made a wrong decision, often causing your team to lose a point or the match
You can also talk about the goals or misses:
What did you think of ____’s goal?
I couldn’t believe ____ missed.
To become an expert at soccer speak you should follow these rules:
1. Find a team to support. Choose one that is doing well. Nowadays, you don’t have to support your local team.
2. Learn all the player’s names
3. Watch the highlights of each match or just check the scores
4. Have an excuse if you missed a game so when some says “did you see the game?” you need to have a very good reason why you didn’t.
Soccer slang
To sound like you are a soccer expert you need to know slang. Try these:
Dive=When a player is touched by another and pretends to have been knocked down to the floor. They often lay there as if in agony just to get a freekick or penalty.
Bicycle kick=This is like a Jackie Chan kick where the player jumps in the air and does a back flip to kick the ball behind them
Dummy =When on eplayer passes the ball to another who just lets it go through his legs to another player.
Juggling =When a player keeps the ball off the ground using his feet, legs , kees, chest and head.
Soccer teams
There are lots of soccer teams in the UK but we don’t always use their real names. Here are the nicknames of some famous teams:
Chelsea = The Pensioners
Everton = The Toffees
Liverpool = The Reds
Manchester United = The Red Devils
The Toon Army = Newcastle United fans
The Gunners = Arsenal
Tottenham Hotspur = Spurs
These are some funny nicknames:
Man Chest Hair United
Liver Pool
New Cattle United
