Another bumper crop of football-useful phrases from this week’s podcast! For more English practice try our online quizzes and crosswords, worksheets and English for football phrases.
- under the weather – sick, tired, feeling down or depressed (maybe after your team has lost to a big rival)
I’m just a bit under the weather at the moment.
- a bumper (crop) – a good (crop), a large amount of something, lots
We’ve got a bumper show this week.
- on a roll – a succession of good results, to be doing well over many games, the start of some positive results
Newcastle are on a roll.
- to extend – to stretch, to increase, to make longer or larger
Lyon and Bayern Munich in France and Germany respectively extended their leads at the top of the table.
- to be thrashed – to be beaten badly, to lose by a lot of goals
Saudi Arabia were thrashed in the World Cup qualifiers.
- to fall off the pace – to drop back, to begin to perform poorly in a race, to lose points, to do badly in the title race
Arsenal have drawn four and lost one out of five: They have really begun to fall off the pace.
- to relish – to look forward to, to be excited about
I’m actually relishing the Liverpool Everton derby.
- to rate – to think highly of, to think (someone/thing) is good
I don’t actually rate Skrtel yet.
- at the end of the day… – my final opinion is.., after thinking about both sides of the argument, I think…
At the end of the day, I think Liverpool are going to win it.
- a slump – a bad run of form, a time of bad luck or bad results
Inter will come out of their slump and win this game one-nil.
- to blow (something) wide open – to make the chances for all contenders more equal, to beat a leading team and make the second or third place team think they can win the title
Sevilla are going to blow the title race wide open by beating Real Madrid.
