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You're listening to the Footglish Podcast.

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Love football, learn English.

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What are England team's strengths and weaknesses?

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Who is Luke's favourite England player?

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Were England lucky with their group seed draw?

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And what do some of the phrasal verbs we used in this episode mean?

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Hello everyone, welcome back to the Footglish Podcast.

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My name is Denik Lucas and you're listening to the Footglish Podcast,

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one of the few podcasts out there where you can learn English with football.

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And we are covering Euro 2024 and today I'm joined by an English fan.

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Hi Luke, how are you?

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Hi Denik, I'm fine thanks.

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Yeah, exciting.

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International football is back.

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I don't follow the premiership or other leagues during the season very closely.

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I'm always interested in what's going on, but I don't watch the games and generally don't keep up with it.

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But then when international football arrives again, then I'm always really excited to get back into it.

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And I have to try and catch up with what's going on,

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and try and catch up with who the players are and which clubs they're playing for and what form they've been in.

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And stuff like that.

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So yeah, I'm interested to hear actually from you because I think you follow football during the year quite closely, don't you?

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I do, but I'm pretty sure you know more about your team than I do.

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Because you're English, I'm Czech.

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Yeah, I mean I know generally about the situation with the team,

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but there are some players at the moment that I'm not so familiar with.

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But yeah, over the last few days, now that the competition is about to start, in fact it starts tonight as we're recording this,

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I've been kind of like binging on all of the podcasts and YouTube videos of pundits talking about the competition, their predictions.

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That's exactly what we need here, Luke.

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And I'm proud that you're one of the first guests on this podcast.

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You're not the first one.

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I'm afraid someone else has taken that accolade from you.

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But we should tell people that you're that Luke from Luke's English podcast, yeah, in case people didn't recognize your voice or something.

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I don't know.

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So my first question for you has to be, are you going to be covering the Euros on your podcast, Luke?

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I don't know, because to be honest, at the moment I'm ridiculously busy trying to make lots of episodes that will sort of cover me for August,

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because basically I'll be away for the whole month of August, so I won't be able to make episodes then.

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And so I'm just like so busy at the moment making episodes and trying to work out which episodes are going to go up when and all that stuff.

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And I just seem to have so much stuff to do.

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So I don't know.

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I don't think so.

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I hadn't planned to do specific episodes about the Euros.

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So, you know, again, that's another reason why it's nice to be on your show.

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This is kind of what we did for the World Cup as well.

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I think we did an episode about that as well, and it was nice to be able to talk on one of your shows instead of doing one of my episodes on it.

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Although I'm going to talk to my dad.

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I'm going to do a Rick Thompson report next week about the political situation.

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And I'll ask him a bit about the football as well, I think.

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But no, I don't.

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I wasn't planning to do a dedicated episode about the Euros.

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But, you know, we'll see if England do well, then I might end up doing something.

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Can you please ask your dad the question, does politics belong to football?

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Because that's what a lot of people really get heated about these days.

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I think it does.

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But please ask this question.

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OK, OK.

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I'll remember to ask him that.

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Does politics belong in football or not?

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Yeah. Yeah.

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Thanks for that.

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Interesting question.

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OK, so I have introduced you as an English fan, as a fan of the England team.

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But in fact, you live in France, your wife is French and your children are both half French, I suppose.

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Yeah, well, yeah, they're both completely French and completely English.

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That's kind of like how I see it.

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So does it does it mean that you only support English halfheartedly or is it full support for England?

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No, it's still still full support for England.

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But I will support France as well.

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But obviously, I find it hard to muster the same level of enthusiasm for France that I do for England, even though I'm, you know,

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I live here and, you know, as you say, like my wife's French and everything like that.

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I still that that core feeling of excitement or, you know, enthusiasm doesn't quite come for France.

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You know, but still, I'll be supporting France, too.

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I want them to succeed, even though actually I want England to win.

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But it's nice to have the two, you know, it's nice to have the two.

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And they're both like among the top favorites for this competition, which is nice.

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So, you know, surely one of them, surely one of them will will do well.

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Yeah. Well, I think I know which one.

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France. Yeah, I think so.

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But we're going to get into that in a second, aren't we?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like what would happen if those two teams were to play each other then?

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So you would be fully, fully behind England, not France.

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Yeah, yeah, I would.

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Yeah. I mean, it happened during the World Cup, if you remember.

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I don't know. Was it a semi final quarterfinal?

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I can't remember now, but France beat England.

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Yeah. And I was actually really ill at the time, not as a result.

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But I mean, I was already really ill and I was in bed and my wife and one of our friends was watching.

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They were watching the match and I was following along with it.

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But it was just a sickening feeling to lose.

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And, you know, I just like stuck, just buried my head in the pillows.

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Yeah. Yeah. So passionate football fans.

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So, yeah, I was happy for France.

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I was I was kind of happy for France, but it was difficult having the proximity, you know, of when if they if they got beaten by Brazil or, you know,

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Argentina or some other team, at least the supporters are all like hundreds of miles away.

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But when France beats England, they're everywhere, all around me and I can't hide.

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You know, it's a nightmare.

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Exactly. Well, England in this euro.

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So obviously, again, you're one of the biggest favorites, as you've already said.

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And basically, there's a lot of pressure again, as always the media.

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Your fans are crazy about football.

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People in your country is one of the main core values.

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Football. I love it.

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But that also puts a lot of pressure on your team.

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So how far do you think they can go in this tournament?

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I mean, anything's possible.

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I think that they've definitely got a strong attacking lineup.

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But half the team is really good.

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I'm not sure about the other half, but the front the front half of the team looks fantastic.

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But then the sort of the defense is a bit of a problem.

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Maybe. So who's your favorite player?

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So you've got Foden, Saka, Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Declan Rice is kind of the holding midfielder, but all these names, like they are world class players, basically.

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I like Jude Bellingham. I think he's great.

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He's kind of intelligent and talented.

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And he's one of those players that can change the game in a lot of ways.

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I mean, obviously, Harry Kane is a goal scorer, and that's exciting.

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But I like the players who sort of do interesting things in the midfield and open up the game and do a lot of work very hard on the pitch and stuff.

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So I think he's I think he's great.

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But he's really young as well, isn't he?

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He's like 20 or 21 years old.

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And he's just won the Champions League with Real Madrid as well.

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So he's going to be definitely up up for another trophy there.

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I wonder if that means he's going to be tired because he's had a very, very sort of tough season.

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He's worked so hard this year.

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Will he be tired? But, you know, he's young.

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He's as you say, he's in his early 20s, so you'd imagine that he's got the energy to, you know, deliver.

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Some people said that he was falling off towards the end of the season with his performances.

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But like, that's perfectly understandable.

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And, you know, I'm pretty sure he will be ready for this tournament.

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And it's just whether whether your players manage to work as a unit, in my opinion, because you need to have a team spirit.

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Like if you have too many good players in a team, in my opinion, that can sometimes be counterproductive because everyone has their ego.

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Right. And everyone wants to do well and to show showcase or show off their skills.

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And in the end, it doesn't create the team that you need to succeed.

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Right. Yeah, we've had that before with England in previous years.

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We've had like really top level squads, especially in sort of what was it? 2008, 2000.

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The Begham era or was that?

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Just after maybe just just just after that.

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So that's when we had Rooney and Gerrard and Lampard and, you know, this really, really good team.

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But they didn't quite we couldn't quite make it work as a unit.

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And yeah, it's a team sport. It has to be the team is, you know,

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the whole is greater than the sum of its parts kind of thing.

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And so, you know, we're going to talk about France in a minute, but I get the impression that France are much, much more of a unit.

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Yeah, but they have also historically struggled with the same, right?

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Historically, yes. But I think during this during these recent years, I think France have kind of really fixed that.

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I mean, in the past, there have been horrendous issues with egos out of control and the players going on strike

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and falling out with their manager and terrible sort of arrogance and individualism in the squad and whatever.

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But with, you know, with this current team, it seems that they are a lot more sort of group group and team focused and the morale is good, it seems.

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Yeah, but you always have these issues or players falling out with each other.

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For example, in the Belgium team, you have this story of Kevin de Bruyne and Thibaut Courtois, the goalkeeper who, again, won the world the Champions League.

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He's just won the Champions League with Jude Bellingham.

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And now suddenly he has he has not been called up for the Euros.

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And everyone is wondering why the official version is that he is injured or he's struggling with some kind of injury.

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But then there is also an incident that happened in the past, obviously.

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Basically, there was there was a girl and it used to be Kevin de Bruyne's girlfriend.

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And then basically, Thibaut Courtois, the goalkeeper stole stole her from him.

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And you can imagine they are not exactly best friends now, these two players.

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So, oh, yeah. Well, yeah, that I mean, it's in a way it's good that they whoever is in charge has separated them because that could be terrible.

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Right. I mean, that could completely ruin the atmosphere in the team, in the dressing room.

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Imagine how awkward that would be. Well, actually, that happened like years ago now, like six, I don't know, six, seven, eight years ago.

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So they have played together, but I think there is always this sort of weird, you know, feeling in the air.

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And that's why the manager decided this time, I think. I'm just guessing it could it could be that he's really injured.

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But I think this may have played the part as well. Maybe de Bruyne had injured him.

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You know, maybe that's what it is. Maybe he kicked him. Yes.

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But yeah, team spirit. So, yeah, England as the favorites, I find it hard to believe, really.

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I think a lot of that is probably the press kind of exaggerating things a bit.

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And obviously, there's a lot of excitement in the UK or at least in England, not the UK, because, you know, Scotland certainly don't really interested in England.

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But the English press are really excited in the bookmakers. Right.

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The bookies are sort of, you know, bigging up England because, of course, you know, lots they want lots of people to place bets on England.

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So there's a lot of that media hype and stuff going on. But really, when you look at the team, I mean, yeah, I think that their strengths are, as we've said, they've got a decent attacking lineup.

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They're youthful, but they've got some experience now, having done like, you know, they did quite well in the last Euros, then the World Cup as well.

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They did quite well then. So the team, like most of the players in the team have got quite a lot of experience, but there's also a lot of youth in there, too, which is good because you need the energy to keep going, especially after a tough season in the Premiership, in the Champions League and stuff like that.

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So youthful, but with some experience and a decent attacking lineup.

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But then I think there are a few disadvantages, a few weaknesses, you know.

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What would you say they are then?

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Well, I understand that the defence are not up to scratch and we're missing, like, central defenders. Our left back is right footed, which isn't great.

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Is that Shaw?

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Shaw, yeah.

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Luke Shaw.

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Luke Shaw, yeah.

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You know, that's a problem when you want to go out wide, you know, if you want to go out wide and utilise the wings and stuff like that, then a right footed left back makes that tricky.

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It's a question of how you look at it, right, because then you have some managers that actually like this because it's the inverted winger or inverted defender.

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So basically you can cut inside, right, as well and bend it in if you're good at it.

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And then you have also obviously Trent Alexander-Arnold is another name we should mention.

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What a great player. But he has recently been playing in the midfield as well.

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So he's a right back, really talented right back with great feet and excellent at set pieces.

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So in my opinion, he should be starting and he will be starting.

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But also, you know, playing in different positions, it's going to be interesting to see who your manager goes for in the end.

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But in my opinion, Luke, you have a big chance to win it.

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I honestly feel it because consistently you've been really doing well in the tournaments, as you mentioned, the last Euros, the one in Covid, remember that one?

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The one you lost on penalties.

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What a surprise.

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Against Italy.

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Yeah.

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The Euros that was supposed to be 2020, but it took place in 2021.

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We did a couple of episodes with Martin about it.

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And yeah, we got to the final against Italy.

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We lost on penalties, of course, like we always do.

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I thought you were getting better at penalties, but then this happened.

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What a sucker punch for you.

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Succum is that famous penalty.

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And Italy won it.

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But what I'm saying is, I felt so sorry for him.

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Yeah, everybody did.

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Me as an Arsenal fan, especially.

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But I just want to say that it looks like you have found the recipe, like compared to the previous decades.

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Now it looks like you are a unit.

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Your manager Gareth Southgate.

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It looks like this might be his last Euro or his last big tournament.

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But it looks like it's a written script, in my opinion, that he could be seen out as a winner.

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Well, yeah, why not?

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But people keep talking about England's defence and the fact that we've got a bit of an issue with our centre backs.

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And also we don't have that much depth in the squad, right?

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Which is another important thing when you're going to get all the way through an international competition, all the way through the end.

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You need substitutes who can fill those roles, who are strong.

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You need options.

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If someone gets injured, you need someone to replace them.

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And I'm not sure we've got the depth there because, I mean, what's the story with Harry Maguire?

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Harry Maguire is injured.

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And then also Jack Grealish was left out.

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So if you leave out Jack Grealish, that tells me that you do have some squad depth.

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I actually disagree with you, Luke.

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I think it's not as bad as you say.

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But Grealish has been left out because he's an attacking midfielder, right?

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What we need is depth at the back.

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We need strength in depth in our defence, don't we?

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Fair enough. I still think you will make it.

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Your group seems to be OK.

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So who is in your group C, Luke?

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Yeah, we're lucky with the draw, like we have been recently.

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We've been pretty lucky over the last few years in international competitions.

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But yeah, group C, is it? Or group B? I can't remember.

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Group C.

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Group C. Yeah, it's not bad, is it?

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It's better than France's group.

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There's a group of death in here somewhere.

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Which one is it?

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Group B is a tough one.

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But anyway, group C, yes.

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Group C. So you've got Serbia, Denmark and Slovenia.

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And your first match will be on Sunday, I believe, against Serbia.

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I think, arguably, the toughest opponent of those three.

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So what's your prediction for that game?

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Well, England's going to have...

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The opening game, what you don't want is to concede goals, right?

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So it could be the story of England's competition in a way that we've got to...

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We've got to take advantage of the strength that we've got in the attack.

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Obviously, we need to score plenty of goals.

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But Serbia are quite an attacking team, aren't they, these days?

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And so we've got to also be a bit careful, cautious, conservative, defensive.

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But that's our weakness.

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So it could be tricky.

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If we are too defensive, then that could neutralize our main strength.

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Whereas if we push it all to the front and try to use our attacking lineup to its best ability,

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then we're vulnerable to counter attacks.

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So, I don't know.

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I think if you let the feed do the talking, you will be fine.

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Let your feed do the talking.

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Just go out there, just go out and have fun, you know, just let your feed do the talking.

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I think you'll be OK.

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Even though Serbia has nominated a player who actually became the best player of the season in the Czech League.

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So we've got one player you should be careful about.

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I don't know if he's a starter, if he's going to be a starter or not.

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His name is Vilko Birmancevic, but he won the league with Sparta Prague and he became the best player of the season.

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So he's really dangerous.

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And Serbia have really some talented players.

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But in my experience, watching teams from the Balkans, they can be sometimes a bit moody.

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So either they have an amazing game that no one can ever beat them.

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And that applies to Croatia and these teams.

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Or are they just they flop completely.

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So whichever one it is, we will see.

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And for obviously good luck to England, Luke.

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Thank you very much.

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Thank you very much for talking to me about your team.

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And we'll see how far you get this time.

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But I think you have a good chance to make it really far.

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I hope so. Yeah, that would be nice.

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But of course, you know, may the best team win, basically.

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Exactly.

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Thank you, Luke, for featuring on this new podcast.

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And good luck to you, too.

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Thank you, Zdenek.

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And I love the idea of a football podcast.

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Keep it up.

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And I hope that, you know, I hope that there are plenty more interesting football episodes to come in the future.

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Thank you very much.

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Take care.

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Cheers.

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In this part of the show, I'm going to teach you something, because just like Luke, I'm an English teacher.

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So let's go.

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Today, I would like to talk about phraser verbs.

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Phraser verbs are those verbs that have two and sometimes more parts and that are notoriously difficult for English learners.

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So I have written down several of these phraser verbs that we used, both Luke and I used in this episode.

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And I'm going to quickly explain them to you.

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Luke said, I'm trying to catch up with what's going on.

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So we have two phraser verbs in this sentence.

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To catch up with something means I'm trying to get updated, get informed.

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So he was talking about phraser verbs.

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I'm trying to get updated, get informed. Yeah.

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So he was talking about international football and the fact that he hasn't seen many matches lately, but now he's watching a lot of videos and sort of get back into it, right?

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To get informed so that he can enjoy watching football again more.

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So catch up with something.

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You catching up with something, right?

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So you kind of behind.

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You were not informed anymore.

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So catch up or Luke is actually not you.

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Okay.

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And he's trying to catch up with what's going on.

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Basically going on means happening here.

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Then Luke said that he has been quite busy lately with his podcast and he said, I'm trying to work out which episodes are going to go up when.

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So I'm trying to work out to work something out means to find answers to something to find a way to do something right to another phrase.

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The verb is to figure something out.

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Okay.

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So he's trying to find the way to do it right so that he knows exactly which episodes go up when to go up.

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In this case means to be released to the public right when these episodes are available to the public.

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Okay.

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And when I talked about the fact that sometimes in a team, a team can be full of egos, right?

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Full of big egos.

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And I said everyone wants to do well and show off their skills when you have a lot of players like world class players who are very confident and they want to show off their skills to show off something means to show what you can do because you are proud of it.

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And you want to attract attention of people.

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And yeah, that's what it means to show something off to show off something.

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Okay.

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Then Luke talked about the French team and he said that in the past, there were horrendous problems in that team, the players going on strike falling out with their manager to fall out with someone means basically to to have an argument with someone and then to stop talking with each other.

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Right.

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That's that's what it means to fall out with someone.

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And then Luke said the bookmakers are sort of bigging up England.

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So if you big someone up, it means you sort of praise someone.

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Right.

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You put them on a pedestal.

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Maybe maybe they don't deserve it.

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Yeah.

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So the media are bigging up all these England stars and maybe maybe it's going a bit too far.

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Okay.

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To big someone up.

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Yeah.

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And then I spoke about Gareth Southgate and I said it's a script.

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He could be seen off as a winner.

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So here the phrase of verb, I use the phrase of verb in the passive form.

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And if you see someone out, it means they finish their role or position.

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Right.

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Their tenure.

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So he is the manager of the national is the manager of the England national team.

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And if he's seen out as a winner, it means you say goodbye to him and he's winning a trophy at the same time.

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So it's he's finishing his position with a great achievement.

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That's what it means basically.

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Okay.

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And I also said then Jack Grealish was left out.

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So if you leave a player out of the squad, that means you don't include the player in the team.

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Right.

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So Gareth Southgate is not going to the Euros.

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He was left out.

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Okay.

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And then at the end, Luke said, I like the idea of a new podcast.

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Keep it up.

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So to keep something up basically means continue with it.

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Don't stop.

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Keep going.

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Okay.

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Keep it up.

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All right, everyone.

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This was the episode with Luke.

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I hope you enjoyed it.

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Luke is someone who has inspired me actually when it comes to my sort of podcasting career.

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It's not really a career, but I started podcasting because of Luke.

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So he always has a special place in my heart.

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And well, what I will say is thank you for listening.

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And please don't forget to subscribe to the Footglitch podcast.

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That's the name of this podcast.

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And it's available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, of course.

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Just search for Footglitch podcast.

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Footglitch is spelled F-O-O-T-G-L-I-S-H.

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Right.

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Make sure you do that.

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And that's it from me.

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Thank you very much for listening.

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And I'll speak to you soon.