[print_link] | Subscribe: The Good, the Bad and the UglyIn this week’s football review section we look back at some of the big stories from the world of football to help learners of English improve their vocabulary. This week we feature stories from the Champions League, the Europa League and from Singapore. You can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below.
This week’s football review
Good
A wonderful away win for Swiss champions FC Basel against London side Chelsea in the first match of their Champions League Group E campaign. The Swiss side found themselves a goal down but fought back with two second-half goals from Salah and Streller to take the three points to give them a good chance of making the knock-out stages in February.
Bad
Spanish side Valencia are going through a bad time at the moment – their worst run in over a decade – where it seems they cannot even buy a win. Having lost their last three games in La Liga they were thrashed 0-3 at home on Thursday evening against Welsh Premier League side Swansea City to leave their qualification hopes in tatters.
Ugly
More match-fixing allegations – this time from Singapore – where a host of arrests have left the fans of the game reeling. This latest story comes soon after a similar scandal recently rocked Australian soccer. Pretty ugly indeed.
Vocabulary
campaign: The battle for qualifying
found themselves a goal down: To be losing by one
they cannot even buy a win: A phrase to explain that they have not won for a long time
were thrashed: Very badly beaten
a host of: A lot of
reeling: Really surprised
rocked: Shocked
