In this football language post we look back at some of the language from the final of the 2023 Women’s World Cup, including ‘slot home‘ and ‘outplayed‘. You can read the 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 admin@languagecaster.com.
Learn English Through Football: 2023 Women’s World Cup Final
DF: Hello again everyone and welcome to Languagecaster.com – the football-language podcast for learners and teachers of English. I’m Damian and I’m based here in London where the weather is still grey but at least it’s not raining!
DF: Well, it’s been two days since the final of the 2023 Women’s World Cup final in which Spain won their first ever title and on today’s show we will be looking back at that final and explaining some of the words and phrases from a BBC report on the game, including the expressions, ‘slot the winner‘; ‘capitalise on an error‘ and ‘outplayed‘.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (from a Spanish fan)
DF: Right, that message was in Spanish and yes, you are listening to Languagecaster.com and congratulations to Spain on winning their first ever Women’s World Cup title after defeating England 1-0 in the final in Sydney last weekend and so in this section of the show we are going to explain a couple of expressions used in the BBC match report about this game.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (from Vietnamese fans)
Slot the winner/Capitalise
DF: So in this phrase we have a description of the goal from Olga Carmona – she slotted the winner past goalkeeper. This suggests that the shot or the strike from the Spanish player was placed accurately into the net – she put the ball in a place where the England goalkeeper Earps could not reach. Maybe we could also use the verb ‘struck the winner‘ though this might emphasise the power of the shot rather than the accuracy. Interestingly, the sentence from the report does not use the word ‘ball’ but rather ‘winner’ which adds more meaning to it – as it was the only goal of the game – Spain won the game with this shot. So, maybe we could re-phrase this part of the sentence as ‘Carmona scored the winning goal with an accurate shot’.
DF: How about the second part of the sentence, ‘capitalising after England’s Lucy Bronze lost possession in midfield‘?
DF: Well, to capitalise on a mistake or an error means to take advantage of a mistake by someone else and this is what Spain did after a mistake from the England defender Lucy Bronze – they took advantage of the space she left open and they attacked into her position which eventually lead to the winning goal. So in this phrase, Spain capitalised or took advantage of the situation because of the mistake by Bronze. What do you have Damon?
Outplayed
DF: To be outplayed means that one team is much, much stronger than their opponent; they played much better than them. They dominated the opposition to win. So, in this example, Spain completely dominated England – they outplayed the English side.
DF: Don’t forget that you can find out more about these and hundreds more football-language phrases by coming along to our football-language glossary here at Languagecaster.com.
Women’s World Cup 2023 Predictions Competition
Congratulations to Zicanda on winning the Women’s World Cup 2023 Predictions Competition – he finished one point ahead of the Learn English Through Football Team and I seem to remember that he also did very well in our 2022 World Cup predictions competition too! Well done to an obvious expert predictor!
Now, don’t forget to come along to our site at Languagecaster.com where you can hear more podcasts on the 2023 Women’s World Cup and also you can access all our other football-language podcasts – we have hundreds of them that date back over 15 years.
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Italian)
Contact
DF: OK, if you have any questions or comments then drop us an email at admin@languagecaster.com and you can also look out for us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – and on the new platform Threads, so come along and say hello! We also have a football-language forum where you can ask and answer any questions you have on the language of football and we have also been posting a daily post from the 2023 Women’s World Cup that look at some of the key phrases including, ‘curled home‘ and ‘red mist‘. So, take a look at these posts on the forum, do some of the quizzes that are there, add a comment or a question or simply say hi!
Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in French).
Goodbye
DF: Yes, you are listening to languagecaster and that message was from a French football fan – they were disappointed to go out of the tournament on penalties – the longest ever penalty shoot-out in Women’s World Cup history. Don’t forget there’s a transcript for this short podcast with lots of vocabulary support – we explain lots of the meanings of these words in the transcript, which you can access by coming along to our site.
OK, that’s it for this podcast in which we looked back at the 2023 Women’s World Cup final. We looked at the phrases, ‘slot home‘ and ‘outplayed‘. Let us know if you hear any of the phrases that we’ve used on today’s show – in any language of course. And enjoy all the football and we’ll see you again soon when we will be looking at more football language. Bye bye!
Related Vocabulary
- 2019 Women’s World Cup posts
- 2023 Women’s World Cup in Numbers
- 2023 Women’s World Cup Preview
- Outplayed
- Language of scoring goals
Learn English Through Football Podcast: A show for football fans to improve their English language skills
Welcome to the website that helps students interested in football improve their English language skills. Football fans can practise with lots of free language resources, including football-language podcasts and our huge football-language glossary.