Phrasal Verbs related to a Football Match

Post author:Harry
Post last modified:06/07/2021
Post category:Phrasal Verbs
Reading time:8 mins read

Here you will learn English phrasal verbs related to a football match. If you are a football fan, this will help you expand your vocabulary and improve your confidence in speaking English.

Harry

Harry is a native English teacher with over 10 years of experience both online and in face-to-face lessons. With his extensive experience in business, he specialises in Business English lessons but happily teaches ESL students with any English learning needs.

Phrasal Verbs related to a Football Match

This is Harry, and welcome to my podcast, where I try to help you with the English language expressions, everyday phrasal verbs and idioms which will help you improve your English speaking and writing skills.

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So what do I have for you today? Today, we’re going to talk about something that everybody loves – or at the least the majority of people love – football. So whether you’re living in France, England, Ireland, Germany, Spain, wherever it might be, football is one of those unique sports that unites cities and also divides them from time to time. So if you’re lucky to love the game as much as I do and, hopefully you support a team a little bit better than my team. Anyway, I hope you enjoy watching and playing football. So let’s look at some phrasal verbs related to a football match.

Phrasal Verbs related to a Football Match

to pay off

Meaning: to get a good result due to something you did in the past

Example:

The change of position of our central midfielder to a striker paid off last weekend when he scored two goals. The purchase of that new defender will pay off eventually.

to gamble on something

Meaning: to take a chance that some tactics or some strategy will work

For example, to park the bus strategy – the defensive strategy

Example:

The manager gambles on the defensive approach.

to brush somebody/something aside

Meaning: to knock someone or something out of the way

Example:

The defensive player wasn’t so well equipped to deal with the strength of the striker, and he was easily brushed aside.

So in the football context, when a really strong defensive player or midfield player is on the ball and he’s moving forward on and then the opposition tried to tackle him. But he was able to brush somebody or something aside with ease.

to hit back

Meaning: to try and recover quickly from the mistake, to retaliate

Example:

The home team lost a goal very early in the game after four or five minutes. But within three minutes they hit back immediately with a very good goal.

Following a corner kick and the striker put the ball into the back of the net and the teams were back on level terms, one each.

The managers can also hit back.

These days the managers have to sit in front of the cameras before and after the games. They have to answer questions about what the tactic is going to be, and then they have to defend their tactics after the game. So some managers get a little bit angry or they hit back at what they consider to be stupid questions from the press.

to rain off

Meaning: the game is cancelled or postponed because of rain; the pitch is waterlogged

Example:

Last summer two matches against England were rained off.

Phrasal Verbs related to a Football Match

to ease off

Meaning: to reduce the intensity of the game. For example, to start passing the ball around a bit more or to not move forward as often as they did before

Example:

To avoid any risk of injury or tiredness, the team eased off slightly.

The manager decided to play the rest of the game easily at the back, so the players eased off.

And, of course, if you ease off on the other team and get that goal, then you have to fight back.