It’s day 3 of the World Cup and we have seen one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history as Saudi Arabia came from behind to defeat Argentina 2-1. We use a BBC report to explain the verb ‘to stun‘. 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 then you can contact us at [email protected].

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Football Language Podcast – 2022 World Cup Language: Day 3: Saudi Arabia Stun Argentina

DF: Hello again everyone and welcome to Languagecaster.com – the football-language podcast for learners and teachers of English. This is Damian and I along with Damon, who’s based in Japan of course, we form the Languagecaster team. And over the next few weeks or so, we will be explaining some of the words and phrases from the 2022 World Cup that is currently taking place in Qatar. On this short podcast, I’ll be looking at the verb ‘to stun’ which appeared in a BBC report on the Saudi Arabia victory over Argentina on day three of the World Cup. Truly incredible!

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Day 3: Saudi Arabia Stun Argentina

Well, day three of the World Cup gave us one of the biggest ever shocks in world football when Saudi Arabia, ranked 51st in the world, came from behind to defeat second favourites Argentina in a Group C match, an Argentina that had not lost in 36 previous matches. Incredible! The sentence we are going to focus on is taken from the BBC report on the game. So, the sentence begins by describing the Saudi Arabian team as ‘ell, wt’ which describes their performance – they were  bold or daring or adventurous as they played a high line against a top team. Why was this daring? Well, most teams would sit back – they would park the bus – and defend with ten players behind the ball but instead they pushed up and gave the Argentinian team very little space.

The sentence goes on to explain that the Saudi Arabian side pulled off a shock – this means that they did something well even though it was a difficult thing to do. We might also hear the phrase ‘to pull off a surprise win‘, which would mean that few people expected the team to win – just like in this example. Most people felt that when Argentina scored first they would go on to win but the Saudis came from behind to win – they were losing 1-0 but ended up winning 2-1.

Now,