The Gunners v Red Devils is the big match this weekend; that’s Arsenal v Manchester United. This game features in our predictions section on the show. We also, of course, talk about the World Cup draw in our review section – the group of death, the lucky teams and more. Add to that a quiz question and some football language phrases and you’ve got another languagecaster.com podcast. For those who wish to practise their English, there is a transcript below to help with reading and listening and if you have questions or comments, email us at:  [email protected] (Damon = DB).

Football Language Podcast: 2018 World Cup Draw and Gunners v Red Devils

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Transcript of the show

DB: You are listening to Languagecaster’s football-language podcast. Hello and welcome to the podcast for all football fans and those interested in improving their English, too. My name’s Damon and I’m speaking to you from a sunny Tokyo. Apologies for the delay in publishing this podcast, but we’ve had a few problems with the time difference between here and the UK! Today, it’s just me, but we’ve got lots of stuff to get through, so I hope you enjoy the show!

You’re listening to languagecaster.com (Mongolian)

DB: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster.com and that message was in Mongolian. Now, if anyone can send us the message ‘You are listening to languagecaster.com’ in their language, that would be great! Maybe we can get all the languages of the World Cup! We’re all excited here at languagecaster about the World Cup draw, which took place this week – more on that later. We’ll also have some football for language with the cliche ‘Win away on a cold night in Stoke, a quiz question, and we’ll look back at some predictions from last weekend’s games.

OK, Now, let’s turn to the World Cup draw for Russia 2018 in our review section. And we’ll start by asking, which is the group of death, that traditional tough group that all teams wanted to avoid?

The Group of Death

Well, the new way of deciding the groups, based on FIFA rankings, has meant there is no really clear group of death this time. However, for 2018, Group D looks the closest to a group of death with Argentina, Nigeria, Iceland and Croatia, but more a group of danger rather than death! And I suppose we should add group F, with Germany, Sweden, South Korea and Mexico.