In this week’s football language podcast for learners of English, we look back at some of the language from the incredible World Cup play-off match between Italy and North Macedonia in which the European champions were knocked out of the World Cup by a side that has never played in a World Cup before. In particular, we will look at the phrases ‘injury-time winner‘; ‘rue their misses‘ and ‘deny‘. You can read a 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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Learn English Through Football Podcast: 2022 World Cup Qualifiers – Italy 0-1 North Macedonia

DF: Hello again everyone and welcome to Languagecaster.com – the football-language podcast for learners of English who love the beautiful game of football. This is Damian and I’m one half of the languagecaster team, the other member of course is Damon who is in Tokyo and no doubt celebrating Japan’s qualification for the 2022 World Cup finals. Now, I’m here in London the day after one of the biggest World Cup shocks of all time – Italy were sensationally eliminated; dumped out of the World Cup after losing at home to North Macedonia in the play-offs. And so on this short podcast we’ll look at some of the language to describe this dramatic shock including, ‘injury-time winner‘; ‘rue their misses‘ and ‘deny‘.

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

Injury-time goal/winner

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So, when the draw was made for the European play-offs to determine the three remaining sides to qualify for the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar, there were many complaints that one of Portugal or Italy – the two most recent European champions – would not qualify as they were due to meet in the play-off final.