A Football Match – Listening Lesson (B2)

The vocabulary in these notes will give you many of the answers for the exercises below. You may prefer to try those exercise first, then come back to this section if you need to.

1. Nil = zero. In many sports, including football, we use nil instead of zero
2. Sore literally means painful. Here it means that the woman is unhappy because her team lost.
3. Fair and square = completely fairly
4. Offside in football means that an attacking player is too far forwards when someone passes the ball.
5. Cos = because (conversational)
6. To foul = to break the rules when trying to take the ball from another player
7. Keeper = goalkeeper, the player in a football match who protects the goal
8. To stand here means to be counted
9. To outplay = to play much better than
10. Ref = referee (conversational)
11. A bad loser = someone who complains when they (or their team) lose