Free English Lessons

A Football Match – Listening Lesson

by Oli Redman on 18 September, 2014 , No comments

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. 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

  1. Nil = zero. In many sports, including football, we use nil instead of zero
  2. Sore literally means painful. Here it means that the woman is unhappy because her team lost.
  3. Fair and square = completely fairly
  4. Offside in football means that an attacking player is too far forwards when someone passes the ball.
  5. Cos = because (conversational)
  6. To foul = to break the rules when trying to take the ball from another player
  7. Keeper = goalkeeper, the player in a football match who protects the goal
  8. To stand here means to be counted
  9. To outplay = to play much better than
  10. Ref = referee (conversational)
  11. 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?

  1. Really stupid or unbelievable
  2. Your team lost
  3. I don’t know how many there were
  4. Be quiet
  5. Really bad
  1. c
  2. a
  3. d
  4. e
  5. b
  6. ridiculous
  7. you/your team got beaten
  8. I lost count
  9. shut up
  10. terrible
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Oli RedmanA Football Match – Listening Lesson

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