Have you ever been to a football match? Which team do you support? Listen to two people arguing about a football match they saw in this free English listening lesson from Oxford Online English. You can also learn useful new words and phrases to talk about football and sport.
Man: What a game! Five-nil1! That must be the most exciting match I’ve ever been to.
Woman: Exciting? That was ridiculous. There’s no way you deserved to score five goals.
Man: You’re just sore2. Your team got beaten, fair and square3.
Woman: Fair and square? Two of the goals were offside4!
Man: Offside? We were sitting in the same place, right? Okay, one of them was close, but…
Woman: Close? He was way offside. And we had that goal disallowed after seven minutes…
Man: Yeah, of course, cos5 your player fouled6 the keeper7…
Woman: There wasn’t a foul. And if that goal had stood8, who knows what would have happened?
Man: Even if I agree with you, we totally outplayed9 you.
Woman: You didn’t outplay anyone. The ref10 had a terrible afternoon. There were so many bad decisions I lost count.
Man: Is someone a bad loser11?
Woman: Oh shut up. We’re still ahead of you in the league.
Man: Not for long, if you keep playing like that…
Woman: Well, enjoy your moment. It won’t happen every week!
Vocabulary Notes
- Nil = zero. In many sports, including football, we use nil instead of zero
- Sore literally means painful. Here it means that the woman is unhappy because her team lost.
- Fair and square = completely fairly
- Offside in football means that an attacking player is too far forwards when someone passes the ball.
- Cos = because (conversational)
- To foul = to break the rules when trying to take the ball from another player
- Keeper = goalkeeper, the player in a football match who protects the goal
- To stand here means to be counted
- To outplay = to play much better than
- Ref = referee (conversational)
- A bad loser = someone who complains when they (or their team) lose
Match the phrases to their meanings
| 1. He was sent off for a bad foul. | a. They were much better than we were. |
| 2. They completely outplayed us. | b. That was an exciting match. |
| 3. His goal was disallowed for offside. | c. He hurt another player, so the ref showed him a red card. |
| 4. The keeper made an amazing save. | d. He kicked the ball into the goal, but it didn’t count. |
| 5. What a game! | e. The goalkeeper stopped the other tea. |
Can you find the words/phrases in the text with these meanings?
- Really stupid or unbelievable
- Your team lost
- I don’t know how many there were
- Be quiet
- Really bad
- c
- a
- d
- e
- b
- ridiculous
- you/your team got beaten
- I lost count
- shut up
- terrible
