Thanks for dropping by and listening to the podcast for fans of football who wish to improve their English language skills. On this week’s show we try to predict the North-West Derby result between Liverpool and Manchester United, take a look at some footballing language, including Atlantic League, and review some of the footballing news from the week. You can read the transcript for the show in our post below (Damian = DF, Damon = DB).

Learn English Through Football Podcast: The 2016-17 North-West Derby

Subscribe to the show and receive automatic downloads every week

* Subscribe through i-tunes here

* Click for the latest shows here

* Podcast FAQ

Transcript of the show

DB: You’re listening to languagecaster’s football podcast. Welcome football fans! My name’s Damon and I’m living in Tokyo, a long way away from England where I was born. But in England, hopefully, we’ll be able to speak to Damian in London. Damian, how are things going over there?

DF: Hello Damon. It is cold and wet today and I am a little disappointed at Spurs only drawing away at West Bromwich Albion yesterday in a game that we completely dominated.

DB: Now today is Sunday and, like last week, we are a little bit later than usual with the podcast. Apologies for that, but hopefully you’ll enjoy the show nonetheless! Of course, the international break for World Cup qualifiers has just finished and regular league football has started up again so we’ll be talking about some of the news from those games in our Good, the Bad and the Ugly review section. Then, we’ll have our regular weekly quiz and after that we will be focusing on some key language from the past week – including Atlantic League and Home nations, while we also look ahead to the big game in our predictions battle: Liverpool versus Manchester United.

Damian, what was good in the footballing news this week?

Good

DF: Well, Damon, you mentioned the World Cup qualifiers that took place over the past week and it was good for Brazil as they won both their games, against Bolivia and Venezuela, to go top of the CONMEBOL group, that’S the South American league, isn’t it. It was also good for Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Greece who all have 100% records after three games in the European qualifying sections. How about bad?

Bad

DB: It was a mixed bag for the home nations, Damian. Wales only managed a couple of draws in Group D – against Serbia and Georgia – and they are now two points behind Ireland and Serbia in third place. England just about managed an away point in Slovenia but they stay top of Group F with seven points from nine. In the same group, Scotland were thrashed 3-0 by Slovakia, which, along with a home draw versus Lithuania at the weekend, means that the Scots will find it difficult to qualify. Northern Ireland were outplayed by the world champions Germany and they find themselves in third place – four points behind surprise second-place team, Azerbaijan. Ugly?

Ugly

DF: well Damon, FIFA boss Gianni Infantino ha...