Day 4 of the 2022 tournament and yet more shocks as Japan defeat Germany 2-1 with a second-half turnaround. In this podcast we look at a description of the goal from a BBC report and explain the words: ‘tight angle‘; ‘thumping strike‘ and ‘squeezed in‘. 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].

Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'KFhfq9ZaT1xFLHWffucaiQ',sig:'ruKagocEtLSKDG9j34IgYk8GbND_atvNHxgW_HwBlb4=',w:'594px',h:'300px',items:'1443917355',caption: false ,tld:'com',is360: false })});

 

2022 World Cup Language Podcast: Day 4 – Thumping Strike (Japan v Germany)

DF: Hello again everyone and welcome to Languagecaster.com – the football-language podcast for learners and teachers of English. I’m Damian and I am in London where the World Cup excitement is starting, just a little, to build. I wonder what it is like in Tokyo, where co-presenter Damon is based, after that amazing 2-1 come-from-behind victory for Japan over Germany? We are going to look at some of the language used to describe the winning goal from that game in today’s World Cup language podcast and in particular we will be looking at the phrases, ‘tight angle‘; ‘thumping strike‘ and ‘squeezed in‘ which were all used in the BBC report of the game.

Don’t forget that over the rest of the tournament we will be explaining some of the words and phrases from the 2022 World Cup that is currently taking place in Qatar and we have already looked at ‘totally outplayed‘ from day one; ‘game of two halves‘ from day two and yesterday we looked at the verb ‘to stun‘ after Saudi Arabia’s incredible win against Argentina. OK, let’s take a look at the language describing the winning Japanese goal from their game against Germany.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (from Germany)

Day 4 – Thumping Strike (Japan v Germany)

What a victory for Japan! To come from behind to beat the four-time World Cup winners Germany was amazing. Here is how the BBC reported on the winning goal.

The Japanese substitute Asano scored a brilliant winning goal by hitting the ball hard and high past the German keeper Neuer. Because the Japanese player was on the right-hand side of the goal, there was not much room to beat the keeper at his near post and this is why the verb ‘squeeze‘ has been used. To squeeze past something is to get past something even though there is not mu...