You're listening to the Footglitch Podcast. Love football, love English.
The European Championship 2024, which is this time held in Germany, is just around the corner.
Who are the favourites to win the tournament? What are my thoughts on the Czech team?
And how do you say that you're excited in English?
These are the topics of the first episode of the Footglitch Podcast.
Hi everyone, welcome to the Footglitch Podcast. My name is Zdenek Lukas
and this is my brand new podcast about football and learning English.
That is the idea of this concept and I hope you guys like it.
And as I said in the introduction, we're going to be talking about the Euros.
So first of all, let me remind you that there are 24 teams in Euros 2024.
24 teams in Euros 2024. Is that a coincidence? I don't know, but it's really interesting.
Isn't it? Anyway, these 24 teams are divided into six groups. Group A, Group B, Group C, Group D, Group E.
And what a surprise, Group F as well. And the first, obviously these teams play each other, right?
So each team plays three matches and so there you have three rounds of the group stages.
And the first two teams from each group automatically qualify to the knockout stages.
And then also the four best third places or four teams in the third places that have the most points.
You are comparing the groups against each other basically.
And so there's a pretty decent chance to progress in the tournament into the last 16,
which is, as I said, the knockout stage. Then after that, the quarterfinal, semi-final, and then the final
to determine the winner of the tournament. And well, when it comes to the favorites,
I think it's the usual suspects, right? It's probably going to be what most people say these days,
most pundits and experts. And I think it's France, Italy, Portugal, of course, Germany, they are the hosts.
They play on home soil. So, yeah, they haven't been playing very well in the recent years,
but I think this time they look much better. They've got some young talents there.
And also England. And personally, not just because I like the English language and I like to teach it
as an English teacher, but also because I really think they are an excellent team. I think my money
this time is on England. I actually think they will win it this time. But when I say things like that,
they usually don't happen. So you never know. When it comes to the dark horses, that is teams that
might surprise us all and might actually do really well, I would say it's always teams from the Balkans, right?
So Croatia, Serbia, and this time we also have Slovenia and Albania. Yeah, I wouldn't underestimate them
at all because they are the dark horses. Also Slovakia, they beat Wales 4-0 in the pre-Euro friendly
match. So they look pretty good as well. When it comes to the underdogs, that is teams that
bookies think will definitely not win anything. I would say it's again probably Albania, even though
I don't think they are underdogs at all. For me, they are dark horses of the tournament. But also
Georgia, it looks like they are the biggest underdog of this tournament because it's their first time.
And I would also add Czechia to that group. That is my team. Czechia, the Czech Republic.
That's because we have the youngest team of the entire tournament. I believe the average age
of our team is around 25 years, which is not much, but that's actually pretty good as well,
isn't it? Because that means that there is a promise for the future. We will see what happens.
But to be honest, the Czech team, they always like to be in that position of the underdogs.
So you never know what could happen. We could even win it. Keep dreaming, Zdenek.
And I think there is no question about who I will be supporting in the tournament. Of course, my team,
the Czech Republic, because I'm Czech. So it makes sense that I might as well support my own team
because I am from there, right? It's logical. But I think I'll also be supporting England,
again, the connection there makes total sense. I like the English language. So I watch the Premier
League a lot as well. I know a lot of England players. So I think I'll definitely be supporting
England. And they haven't won anything for a long, long, long, long, long time. So hopefully they
will this time. And then also traditionally, I will support Slovakia because, well, they are
always supporting us. Because, well, we always love Slovakia because we used to be one country,
Czechoslovakia, right? So that makes sense. Also Poland, our neighbors, Polish, the Poles, right?
Definitely supporting them. And then also this time I will be supporting Ukraine. And that's because
of the whole war situation. I will definitely support Ukraine in this tournament.
Traditionally, when it comes to the Euros, we actually do pretty well, the Czech team,
or you could say Czechoslovakia. As Czechoslovakia, we won the Euros back in 1960,
19, sorry, 1976. And it was with that famous Panenka kick. Yeah, we won it on penalties and
Panenka scored the final penalty. And since then, it has been called the Panenka kick. It's like a
chip in the middle, right? And yeah, and then we also reached the final in 1996 as the Czech
Republic. And then I think our best tournament was in 2004. I remember that pretty well. And
that's when we played fantastic football. But unfortunately, we were beaten by Greece in the
semi-final. It was also when Milan Barosz became the top goal scorer. He won the Golden Boot with
five goals. So those times are over. Unfortunately for the Czech team, our team is not among the
favorites this time. And I also have to say that in the previous Euro, we also did pretty well.
It was the COVID one. I believe it was supposed to be Euro 2020, but it was played in 2021,
something like that. The tournament was postponed because of the whole virus situation, because of
the pandemic, right? So yeah, we did quite well in that as well. We beat the Netherlands and then
got beaten by Denmark in the quarterfinal. So the Czech team played two friendlies before the Euros.
We beat Malta 7-1. Nobody really understands why we chose to play Malta. No offense, but probably
we should have chosen a tougher opponent, although everyone says that nobody really wanted to play
with us, so we didn't really have a choice. The next match was against North Macedonia. That was
a better match. I mean, when I say better match, a better opponent, but a match. I think it's
a normal thing that the last games before the Euro, they are not the best performance. The teams
don't put in the best performances because of the fact that nobody wants to get injured. And you also
want to kind of try all different players. The games are usually not that good, and it was the
case in this game. We beat North Macedonia 2-1, but scored two goals from penalties. They were
barely penalties, really soft penalties. But the main thing is that nobody got injured from the
Czech team on the pitch. Well, that's because there was actually one player who had to be sent
home because he got injured off the pitch. Yes, he was riding down a hill on one of those big hills
in Austria. You could say a slope where people go skiing. So apparently he was riding it down
with a couple of his teammates on a tricycle, which is that vehicle that kids use. I don't understand
how this could have happened, but it's a personal tragedy for this player. And of course,
I wish him a speedy recovery, but it's also slightly amusing. I can't help it. It's slightly amusing
and slightly stupid. Unfortunately, that's what I think about this. And yeah, our biggest stars
would be probably our captain Tomas Socek, who plays for West Ham. Then we also have another player
who is at West Ham, and that's Vladimir Tsofal, the right back, the life and soul of the party,
the party animal. Yeah. And then we've got a few up and coming young players such as Krejci,
who is heavily linked with Girona. It looks like he's going there, the second team of La Liga,
and the team that will hopefully play in the Champions League. I say hopefully because as we
know, there are some issues that Manchester City and Girona have the same owner. So something will
have to be done about that, some kind of exception given. But anyway, then we also have Hlozek and
Kovář playing for Leverkusen. And then of course, probably our biggest star, Patrik Schick,
who knows, he did really well in the previous Euro. He scored a goal from the halfway line.
And so, yeah, we will see what happens. But overall, I would say that our team lacks creativity,
and the only way we can really succeed is if we play like a team. Yeah, we need to go for some
kind of team performance and cohesion and work together as a unit because let's say our individual
skills are no match. No, the other way around. The individual skills of the other teams are no match
for the likes of Czechia. Unfortunately, we don't have much creativity, as I said. So I think,
I'm guessing that we are going to sit much deeper and play physical football. We will be relying on
set pieces because we've got some players who are capable from those game situations. We have
people who can head the ball pretty well in the back of the net. So that is probably what's going
to happen. I say probably because our new manager, Ivan Hasek, isn't revealing much. It's a bit of
smoke and mirrors kind of thing. He's trying to hide as much as possible from his opponents.
So we will see what happens. I'm really buzzing about this tournament. I can't wait. It's going
to be a lot of fun. And yeah, don't worry, guys, by the way. I won't always talk about the Czech
team on this podcast. Since I'm Czech, it's inevitable. You will have to put up with me
talking about the Czech teams, Czech players quite a lot. But I'm also planning to have some guests
who come from countries like England, the Netherlands, Turkey, Poland, Germany, anyone
really that is interested in featuring on this podcast and talking about their team. And I'm
up for it. I would like to hear different voices and different accents on this podcast because
ultimately this is an English learning podcast. So it's going to be quite fun hearing
different people on this podcast that have different nationalities. Yeah. And one last thing about
the Czech team. What is my prediction? Do I think we will win the tournament? No, I don't think so.
Not a chance. Not a chance. Not with this team. Unfortunately not because the other teams,
they just have superstars and their players just have more ability. That's my idea. But I hope we
can make it out of our group. Speaking of the groups, I could actually, you know what, I could
go through the groups here. Groups Euro 2024. I could tell you what the groups are. So we have
group A, which features Germany, Scotland, Hungary and Switzerland. Group B, I believe group B is the
group of death. Yeah. Each time groups are drawn in any tournament, you always try to identify the
group of death and it's group B because you have Spain, Croatia, Italy and Albania there. So
definitely group of death. And group C has Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia and England in it.
Really interesting group as well. Group D Poland, Netherlands, Austria, France, another group of
death. Actually, I don't know which one is more the group of death. Is it B or D? Who knows? Group E
Belgium, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine and group F Turkey, Georgia, Portugal and Czechia. So that's
that. And yeah, guys, I think I think that will be it when it comes to football. Now, let's talk about
the language. Okay, guys, so in this bit, I would like to teach you something. So let's talk about
the ways you can say that you're excited about something in English. Okay. First of all, notice
the preposition excited about something. But some people might say to be excited for something as
well. Okay, that's possible too. But I think that's the way to say it. So let's talk about
possible two. And obviously, if you want to be a little bit more formal, and you don't want to sound
sound so strong, you can say I'm looking forward to the euros. I'm looking forward to the first
match. Right? Now be careful about this phrase of verb to look forward because it it is also
joined by the preposition to you have to add the preposition to when you are using another verb.
And a lot of people get this wrong all the time. So you should say something like this, I'm looking
forward to watching the euros, right? It's also used in emails in email English, you would write
at the end of your email, you would write something like I look forward to hearing from you. Okay.
Okay. So make sure you put that verb after the preposition to in the ing form. Okay, another way
to say that you're excited about something is simply to say I can't wait for something. You can
say I can't wait for the euros to start. I can't wait to watch the first game. Right? I can't wait
for it as well. You can say I can't wait for the first match. Okay. And then something that is used
a lot by football fans in England by basically, you know, I hear it a lot on on different YouTube
channels. For example, they say I'm buzzing. I'm absolutely buzzing about this. I'm buzzing about
our next game. I'm absolutely buzzing about whatever like so when you're really excited,
right? It could be after an achievement after you have won a game, but it could be before
a game like that, right? You have such a strong emotion, which is positive, right? So you again,
to be buzzing about something. And again, I've also heard people say for but I think the right
way is to be buzzing about something. And then there are other expressions, for example, to be
stoked about something. I think it has nothing to do with that team Stoke City. I don't think so.
But anyway, this is it. I hope you find it useful, guys. And let me know what you are buzzing about
yourselves. Please let me know in the comments on my YouTube channel, teachers, the YouTube channel,
because that's also where I will be publishing this podcast. Or you can even send me an email,
I guess, at teachers, then at gmail.com. And that's it. I will speak to you soon. Bye for now. Cheers.