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Football Phrase of the Week: Retain
This week’s football phrase is the verb to retain. This is the key word from the Euro 2025 finals as England retained the title of European champions. You can read the transcript for this post 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 admin@languagecaster.com
DB: Welcome to Languagecaster.com’s weekly football language podcast. My name’s Damon and I am one half of the languagecaster team. Over here in Tokyo, where I am based, it is incredibly hot and humid. I wonder how Liverpool, the team I support, will handle this heat when they play their friendly mid-week. How about where you live listener? Hopefully you are enjoying nicer weather. Damian, the other member of the team is based in London, and he’s been sending me wonderful photos of a trip in Ireland. Apparently, Donegal is the place to go!
Well, on this Football Phrase of the Week, we are going to talk about England’s penalty win over Spain in the Women’s European Championships final, and we will focus on the verb ‘to retain‘.
Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (in Chinese)
DF: Yes you are listening to Languagecaster.com and that message was in Chinese.
Retain
DB: Yes, the Lionesses, the Women’s England team, beat Spain in the final on penalties. This means they are still the European Champions, they retain the title of champions. To retain is to keep, and in football is often used when a team keeps its title or wins the same trophy again. Notice retain is followed by title – retain their title. You may also hear ‘crown‘ instead of title – retain their crown.
Here is UEFA.com describing England’s victory: ‘Holders England came from behind before beating Spain on penalties to win the UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 final and retain the title.‘
One other use of ‘to retain’ in football is used to talk about transfers. A team may retain an interest in a player, which means they are still interested in buying them. For example, this week, Liverpool still retain an interest in Newcastle United’s Isak. They showed interest a while ago, and are still retaining their interest.
Ride Their Luck
DB: So, well done to England for retaining their crown, but they certainly didn’t do it the easy way. They rode their luck in the knock out stages. To ride your luck is to basically be a bit lucky or to succeed despite being in a lot of 50-50 situations.
England needed penalties to beat Sweden in the quarter finals, extra time to overcome Italy in the semis, and of course, penalties to beat Spain in the final. Each of these games could have gone the other way.
ESPN reported that the captain, Williamson ‘admitted that England rode their luck during their campaign in Switzerland. After losing to France, every game was a must-win.‘
We would just like to make it clear though that we are not saying England were lucky! They never gave up and had to overcome great sides to lift the trophy, so well done to them again.
Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (in Thai)
DB: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster.com and that message was in Thai. So, on today’s show, we congratulated England on retaining their title as European Champions. We also looked at the idiom to ride your luck.
Drop us a line at admin@languagecaster.com if you have any ideas for football language or want us to explain any football words or phrases that you’ve heard.
Enjoy all the football this week and we’ll be back soon. Ta-ra!
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