On this football language podcast for learners of English, we look at some of the language to describe the winning Irish goal in the 2023 World Cup play-off match against Scotland. 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].

 

Football Language Podcast: Women’s [2023] World Cup Play-off – Scotland v Ireland

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DF: Hello again everyone and welcome to Languagecaster.com – the football-language podcast for learners of English who love the beautiful game of football. I’m Damian and I am one half of the Languagecaster team and I’m here in London where the weather is bright and a little sunny – a typical Autumn day, while the other Langugecaster team member is Damon and he is based in Japan.

Now, on this short podcast, we are going to look at the Women’s World Cup and in particular at one of the European play-offs that took place earlier this week to decide which teams would go to the finals that take place in Australia and New Zealand in 2023. Of course, the Japanese side (Nadeshiko) will be among the favourites to win the title but I am going to take a look at some of the language used to describe the winning goal for the Irish Women’s Football team in their [2023] World Cup play-off game against Scotland last week. The win sent the Irish to their first ever World Cup in their history and the whole country is now super excited about this Irish team.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Irish)

Cushioned header/Threaded a pass/Sliding a lovely finish

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Let’s take a look at how the RTE website [the Irish state broadcaster]… how they described the winning goal.

So, there’s quite a lot of information in these two sentences. In the first one, we can see that an Irish player passed to a team mate with a gentle headed pass – a cushioned header. A cushioned header is one that is controlled, that guides the ball carefully to a team mate. If a player cushions the ball it means that they have taken the power and pace off the ball and so it is easier for ...