P - V

P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Park the bus” – defensive tactic aimed at frustrating the other team. A saying favoured by José Mourinho who would never dream of getting tactical or negative, oh no.

“(he's already) paying back his price tag” -when a newly acquired player proves his worth. Monetary terms are so romantic.

Pearce, Stuart -nicknamed “Psycho”. Loved the Stranglers and the Sex Pistols.

“Penalties” -a lottery, according to the seasoned opinion of British pundits who -for the most part- were professional players themselves. “It's us done for Gary -penalties are a lottery!”

“the People's club” -how Everton likes to see itself.

“Philosophy” -how the new breed of managers describe their occupation, or else a project.

“Physical side of the game” -violence.

“(a shot) picking up pace” -is this even possible?

“Plate, on a” -where the striker had it, and still managed to miss. Another highly illogical expression.

“(I am) pleased with my performance, but what is more important is that the team does well / the three points” -a staple of post-match interviews.

“Plucky” -less rich than the other team. See also “minnows”, “brave”, “dark horses”, “the magic of the cup”, and so on.

Plural (use of) -”your Zidanes, Ronaldos”. Makes the commentator sound blasé about the whole thing and existentially above the named individuals.

“(defender) has (attacker) in his pocket” -when a player has the total measure of his opposite player and denies him every opportunity. Then again, said player may get “his pocket picked”, i.e. lose the ball.

Portsmouth -”Pompey”, as in “Play up, Pompey!”

“(the) Potters” -Stoke City.

“Premier League” -the-best-league-in-the-world. Hear, hear! What pace- and physicality- challenged foreign players need time to adapt to, especially since things such as tackles are banned abroad.

“Price tag” -what gets slapped.

“Professional foul” -frankly alarming oxymoron referring to sacrificial thuggery perpetrated for the good of the team. “Taking one for the team”.

“Project” -what football clubs have become.

“Protracted” -how transfer dealings often turn; then they become “sagas” in their own right. Businessmen at the helm of football clubs wouldn't have it any other way.

“You make a mistake at this stage of a game, you get punished” -you can get away with conceding penalties any other time, presumably.

“You would have put your house on him scoring!” -for these pivotal moments when a player is highly expected to score ...and fails to comply.

“Putting one's foot through the ball” -presumably not for real. Vigorous kick, one rather suspects.

  

Q ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“QSG” -sarcastic nickname for Paris Saint-Germain alluding to the origin of its sudden obscene wealth.

“(The other lot has a lot of) quality players” -getting one's excuses in early.

“Quarterback pass” -long pass. Reference to some sport played in the US of A.

R ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Radar” -where potential transfer subjects appear, as opposed to pitches where they can be witnessed in action. The aforementioned potential transfer subjects accordingly become “targets”.

“Rafters” -what a stadium is packed up to the.

“Raise your hands” -commentators like to assert that any player raising his hands is asking for an automatic red card. Which is not in the rule book. Cf. also the notorious “last defender” imaginary rule.

“Rattle” -what the goal-frame often does.

“Red alert” -what clubs are said to be on when “unsettled players” slash “contract rebels” go mano a mano with their current employers.

“the Red Devils” -nickname of the Belgium and South Korean teams. (Also of Manchester United.)

Redknapp, Harry -most emphatically NOT a wheeler dealer, but “a fackin' football manager” in his own immortal words. Avuncular character prone to answer reporter questions from inside his motorcar. Universally known as “'Arry”.

“(to put the) reducer on a player” -to assault him. Another find by Ron Atkinson, casually explaining how to deal with a skilful player.

Referee, the -either “needs glasses” or “is a w@nker”. “The referee's decision is final”. Magnanimous managers will concede that “referees have a difficult job” ...before blasting them for what they will consider to be the wrong decisions. “Assistant referee” is the new name for “linesman”, something sniggering old school pundits still can't get their heads around.

“Reinforcement” -new player.

“Rolling back the years” -used to describe players over the age of thirty-three. Suitable for consummate professionals like Teddy Sheringham, Gordon Strachan, or Ryan Giggs.

“Root of the problem” -when it's time to wonder why the England football team never performs. An expression wheeled out every other year.

“Roy of the Rovers stuff” -reference to a popular soccer comic to denote a felicitous, unforeseen dramatic twist that nobody expected to see outside the world of fiction. Grabbing victory out of the jaws of defeat, for example.

“the Royals” -Reading FC.

“Rub of the green” –when the other team has all the luck. What Nick Cave, in a rarely heard Biblical mood, would call “kicking against the pricks”.

“Running down the clock” -when the team in the lead plays it safe as long as it possibly can.

S ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Salmon -what (often left unmarked at the back post) players rise like to head a corner in.

“a save right out of the top drawer” -a very good one: where one's undies are usually kept.

“(he) saw the headlines” -when a player “went for glory” instead of playing for the team. See also “he got a little bit excited there”.

Scholes, Paul -he could never tackle! Followed by wry chuckle on the part of the commentator. Incidentally, not a view shared by Roy Keane who -fancy that- simply ignored the official line and claimed that Scholes always knew exactly what he was doing. “the ginger prince”

“(so-and-so) sold him a lollipop” -another one courtesy of “Big” Ron Atkinson. Denoting a cunning act of subterfuge perpetrated by a player feinting to go in one direction ...only to wrong-foot the defender and go in the other one, the cheeky rascal. As Raymond Chandler would put it, “he waved a fish in front of (your) nose”.

“Seconds, in the” -always “dying”.

“The teams have set out their stall” -they're playing a for nil-nil draw.

“Seventh” -the number of the heaven reached.

Shaqira Shaqira -”this time for Africa”.

Shaqiri Shaqiri -”this time for Bavaria”.

Shankly, Bill -he was a socialist, you know. (Like fellow Scot Sir Alex and Brian Clough.)

“the shirts” -affectionate nickname for the players you support. Also “the boys”, “the lads”, “the lazy buggers”.

Shots -can be “fired”, “drilled”, “rifled”, “thundered”, “hammered”, “slammed”, “blasted”, “driven”, “arrowed”, “thumped”, “scuffed”, “lashed”, “smashed”, “unloaded”, “belted”, “guided”,  “flicked”, “backheeled” (in which case always in a “cheeky” fashion), “dinked”, “slotted”, “steered”, “curled” (this time always “delightfully”), “stabbed”, “poked home”,  “deflected” (naturally “giving the keeper no chance”), “scrambled”, “bundled”, “dispatched”, “rolled” (usually “into an empty net”), “blazed”, “skied”, “squandered”,  and so on.

“Should have scored (from there)” -always uttered when the player didn't. ...Not that he wouldn't have preferred to do so eh.

“Sick as a parrot” -highly disappointed. This expression supposedly refers to a parrot offered to the Tottenham Hotspur team who died the day Arsenal FC were voted in the First Division at Spurs' s expense. ...in 1919.

“Siege mentality” -football people don't half-like their military similes. George Orwell (1903-1950) once wrote that “sport is war without the guns”.

“Single minded” -selfish, won't pass the ball.

“(missing a) sitter” -failing to score an easy goal. No actual sitting down is involved.

“Six“ -what some get hit for.

“Six of one, half a dozen of the other” -what the French would call “fifty-fifty” (sic).

”Six-pointer” –technically incorrect, mathematical sounding calculation that adds the three points gained by the winning team to the three points lost by the defeated one in a crucial game, either at the top or bottom of the league.

“Slightest of touches”

“Snags and stumbling blocks” -pesky obstacles to transfers. Often involve the dreaded  “personal terms” and“add-ons”.

Snatch -easy now! Refers to how shots can be fired: they can be “snatched at”, that's how.

“Soap-in-the-shower moment” -nope, not a hilarious reference to anal rape, but an image describing a keeper's fumbling attempts to claim a squirming ball. On this subject, Diego Maradona was said to be able to play keepy uppie with soap bars.

“the Socceroos” -rather wonderful nickname for the Australian football team. Their national support song goes “Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie! Oi oi oi!” … Beat that, Michael Nyman.

“Somewhat fortuitous” -redundancy alert!

South American teams -the dirtiest in world football.

Southampton -”the Saints”.

“Spectre” -either evocation of a predecessor or fate tempting hypothesis. Clubs will be said to be “haunted by the spectre of relegation”, even though there is nothing supernatural about it.

“Spell on the sidelines” -ban.

“Spoof transfer rumour” -a bit of fun on the rise ever since the promotion of social networks. Often involving airport check-outs and motorway service stations where certain players were allegedly “spotted”.

“Squeaky bum time” -an invention of Sir Alex, gleefully recycled to convey a feeling of high tension.

Stadium of Light -l'Olympique Lyonnais's new stadium; and Sunderland's; and Benfica's.

“Stalwart” -the jury is out as to when a “work horse” becomes a “stalwart”.

“(So-and-so got transferred out of the club after being caught) stealing from his team-mates in the dressing room” -legendary story that has done the rounds, involving various players that our learned friends will certainly not allow us to name. Probably dragging the beautiful game into disrepute, eh.

“Stone-cold / stonewall penalty” -what exactly penalty shots have to do with minerals or gay bars has never been cleared up.

“Strength in depth” -rich club.

Substitution -will be called “inspired” when producing a(n end) result. To be filed under the Language Inflation category.

"Summer spending spree" -What clubs embark on, when they spend huge amounts of money on new players.

“...and that sums up his / their season” -to accompany footage of a shocking miss.

“Sunday” -”super”.

“(You're) supposed to be at home” -popular chant by away fans taunting the relatively quiet local  crowd. Of course, visiting fans always tend to be more vocal than local ones on balance: they want to make good on the expenses incurred for their trip!

“Swoop” -buy.

T ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Take one game at a time” -there is no other way to play.

“Taking their foot off the pedal” -when players relax once in front. Please note: they are not actually driving any vehicle.

“Taking home the ball match” -more like the last ball in play at the end of the ninety minutes, yeah. The privilege of a hat-trick scorer.

“(We'll let our football do the) talking” -a physical impossibility that attests to football players' lack of verbal skills.

“Ah I don't wanna talk about other teams' players but (insert name here) is a terrific lad and everyone knows I like him” -and the manager has not in any way suggested that he would be interested in signing the player under discussion, because that would be illegal “tapping up”.

“(the) Tangerines” -Blackpool's nickname.

“Old fashioned target man” -elbowing, big lump waiting for “route one” balls to reach him so that he can “bury them inside he net”.

“Ten men behind the ball” -self-explanatory, which -er...- makes it how many in front again? Ultra-defensive stance.

“the Ukraine” -and yes, some commentators still use an article when referring to this country, something they somehow never do for Uruguay, Italy, Argentina, Holland...

“Thick” -and always “fast”.

“They think it's all over -it is now” -excerpt from the commentary to the 1966 World Cup final that saw England win its only trophy. Recycled as the title of a popular BBC sports comedy show.

“They're throwing everything at them except the kitchen sink”

“Tiki Taka” -tactic consisting of monopolising the ball and exchanging quick intricate passes that served well the all-conquering teams of Barcelona and Spain. When practised in the Premier League (notably by Arsenal), called “passing oneself to death with no end product”.

“(the) Toffees” -nickname for Everton.

“Too good to go down” –how pundits who base their predictions on respectable names -rather than judge each game on its own merit- make themselves hostages to fortune. A similar line of reasoning was applied to multi-billion financial institutions up to 2008 ...and we saw what happened next. See also “on paper”.

“Top top” -of great quality, as in “he's a top top player, he needs to be playing for a top top club.”

“Transfer limbo” -mythical wilderness where naughty footballers who have issued a come-and-get-me plea are sent to.

“Transfer raid” -transfer.

“Transfer window” -what slams shut.

“Turning up” -sometimes commentators go blind and just can't see the teams on the pitch. What teams are accused of not doing when they give it substantially less than the proverbial 110%, in fact when they give it substantially less than the minimum required itself ...and suffer the consequences.

“Twelfth man” -home support. There are only eleven men per team (+ sometime the referee, but that's a story for another day).

“Typical defender shot” -straight into the proverbial Row Z.

“Typical striker tackle” -assault.

U ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ugly ball to defend” (copyright Ron Atkinson) -in English, a difficult one to defend.

“Ugly head” -what something is always ready to rear its.

“United” -usually refers to Manchester United, to the understandable annoyance of other teams hailing from Newcastle, Leeds, West Ham, Sheffield and so on. A complaint that typically unpretentious MUFC fans like to respond to with “there's only one United”, which surely -in fact, as has just been pointed out- is highly erroneous. 

“Unknown quantity” -(usually foreign) player that the commentator has never heard of. How respected pundit Alan Shearer once introduced ex-Olympique Lyonnais league winner and full France international Hatem ben Arfa.

“Unveil” -present (a new player or manager). Does not involve the lifting of an actual veil.

“Up and at 'em” -call to go and assault opponents.

“U-turn” -always dramatic.

V-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Virtually unmarked” –genuinely unmarked, more like. What is this nonsense? Are we watching a video-game or a real match??