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Weekly Football Phrase: Caught Napping
In this football phrase of the week we look at the phrase ‘caught napping’, a phrase usually used to talk about defending. 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 here.
DB: Hello there and welcome to the Learn English Through Football’s weekly football phrase. On this show, we are going to talk about the phrase ‘caught napping’ and what it means in football. My name’s Damon, and I’m based in Tokyo, which is getting ready for cherry blossom season. Unfortunately it’s raining, which is not ideal! I hope you have better weather where you are and that you have been enjoying the football this week.
Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (from a Mongolian listener)
DB: Yes, you are listening to the Learn English Through Football Podcast, or as we were known before, Languagecaster, and that message was in Mongolian.
Caught Napping
DB: OK, today’s phrase is ‘caught napping‘, which is used in the passive form, so ‘to be caught napping’. Now, I was watching my team Liverpool play Brighton and Hove Albion and I heard the commentator say a player was ‘in the wide awake club‘. Wide awake, means not asleep and more than that, it means very alert and watchful. So the commentator was saying the defender was ready and alert to any danger.
This reminded me of the opposite, when a defender is NOT paying attention, is NOT awake. In this situation, an attacking player can often steal the ball, or go past the defender. The defender is caught napping!. To nap is to sleep, so in football to be caught napping is to not be aware that an attacker is near, and to allow the attacker to get the ball. The player is asleep.
Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (from a Dutch listener)
Asleep at the Back
DB: It is not only players that can be caught napping, teams can also be guilty of not paying attention, not being ready. Maybe the opposition makes a fast start and they are not ready. They are slow and don’t see the danger and allow the other team to have a dangerous attack or even score.
In this situation, we can also say a team is asleep at the back. This means that the defenders are slow to realise danger and are not alert and ready.
Here are some examples of caught napping and asleep at the back.
Examples
Givemesport.com
Arsenal defender William Saliba ‘did not shine’ and was ‘caught napping‘ during France’s 4-1 Nations League win over Israel in Budapest, with various French publications criticising the centre-back’s display.
So Saliba made a mistake in defence and did not have a good game.
Yorkshirepost.com
Wolves deserved to keep that lead until half-time but fell asleep at the back just before the break, allowing Darwin Nunez to equalise.
Here. Wolves as a team didn’t recognise the danger from Liverpool’s attacker, Nunez, who scored because of the mistake.
Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (from a Liverpool fan)
Wrap Up & Good bye
DB: So on today’s weekly football language podcast, we looked at a couple of phrases to talk about bad defending. The first, to be caught napping, can be used to talk about a player or a team. The second, to be asleep at the back, is usually used to talk about the team’s poor defending.
Hopefully your team’s players are not caught napping and they are not asleep at the back. Enjoy all of the football and we’ll be back later in the week with our main football language podcast.
Take care, and ta-ra!
Learn English Through Football Podcast: A show for football fans to improve their English language skills
