Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:24 — 9.2MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Blubrry | Podchaser | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | Youtube Music | RSS | More
Football Phrase of the Week: Throw Under the Bus
This podcast’s weekly football phrase is to throw under the bus. which is a phrase used by Mohamed Salah in comments this week. Read the transcript for this post below, and for more football language and vocabulary 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: Hi there everybody. Welcome to LearnEnglishThroughFootball.com’s weekly football language podcast. My name’s Damon and I am based in Tokyo. We hope you are well and that you have been enjoying the football this week. I wonder if you saw or heard Liverpool football club’s Mohamed Salah speaking to the press this week. We’ll be looking at a phrase he used in that interview and some related phrases in today’s show.
The phrase he used was ‘to be thrown under the bus‘ or ‘to throw under the bus‘.
Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (A Tottenham Fan)
DB: Yes you are listening to LearnEnglishThroughFootball.com, and that message was from Akito, a Japanese fan of Tottenham Hotspur. Thank you Akito.
Today’s Phrase
DB: Right, let’s talk about today’s phrase, which is an idiom used in English generally, but this week used by Mo Salah in the world of football – throw under the bus.
Throw Someone Under the Bus
The idiom “to throw someone under the bus” means to betray or blame someone for something to protect yourself or to improve your situation. The ‘someone’ could be a work colleague or, in football, a teammate or manager. It usually involves moving the blame onto someone or encouraging criticism of someone to avoid personal responsibility. Basically, you want to avoid criticism, so try to point at another person.
Mo Salah’s Recent Use
This week, Liverpool FC star forward Mohamed Salah recently used this phrase in an interview after a match against Leeds United. The Egyptian was on the bench again, for the third time in a row, and was not happy about being benched or dropped from the team.
In the interview with the press, he said, “It seems like the club has thrown me under the bus… I think it is very clear that someone wanted me to get all of the blame.”
Using this phrase, he showed that he felt he was being blamed for Liverpool’s recent poor form. H wanted to say that all players should share responsibility for poor performances rather than blaming individuals. However, many pundits and Liverpool fans feel that rather than Liverpool or the head coach Arne Slot throwing Salah under the bus – blaming Salah – the player’s words threw Arne Slot under the bus.
How Can It Be Used in Football?
This idiom often appears in football contexts such as:
- A manager blaming a player for a defeat instead of admitting tactical mistakes.
- A club leaking negative stories about a player to justify selling them.
- A teammate criticizing another player in the media after a bad game.
Stinger: You are listening to Languagecaster (in Dutch)
Thank you for that message which was in Dutch. If you can, please send us a message like that in your language. We’d love to get more languages on our show. Just record a message saying, ‘You are listening to the Learn English Through Football Podcast’, and we’ll add it to the show. Our contact email is contact@learnenglishthroughfootball.com.
Cliche – No One is Bigger…
DB: So, with Mo Salah publicly blaming the head coach and Liverpool management, what will happen next? Well that brings us to a nice football cliché to finish the show – No player is bigger than the team. In 99% of cases where a player publicly criticizes a club, it is usually the club that wins and the player is shipped out or sold. No one is bigger than the club – this goes to the heart of football, which is a team sport, but also the team is an institution with a long history. Players come and go, but the team remains.
Good Bye
DB: Before we go, drop us a line at contact@learnenglishthroughfootball.com if you have a comment or leave one under the post at LearnEnglishThroughFootball.com. And of course let us know 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!
Learn English Through Football Podcast: A show for football fans to improve their English language skills
https://languagecaster.com/football-language-glossary/
