1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,000 You're listening to the Footglitch Podcast. Love football, learn English. 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:12,000 Does the Czech team stand any chance against Portugal tonight? 3 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:15,000 What will be the likely tactic from the Czechs? 4 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:21,000 Which Sparta Prague and Liverpool FC players have impressed at the Euros so far? 5 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:45,000 And what are collective nouns and how do we use them in English? 6 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:50,000 Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the Footglitch Podcast. 7 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:53,000 My name is Denek Lukas, I'm an English teacher and a football fan. 8 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:58,000 And you might be wondering what on earth is the Footglitch Podcast? 9 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:04,000 Well, it is a podcast about football that can help you get better at English. 10 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:10,000 And today I'm going to be talking about the Czech team because we're playing against Portugal, our first game. 11 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:15,000 And I'm joined by a countryman from the Czech Republic, Mikolaj Tucek. Hi Mikolaj. 12 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:18,000 Cheers, welcome everybody. 13 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:20,000 How are you doing? 14 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:27,000 Great, great. Not a big expectation ahead of today's game, so we will see. 15 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:31,000 Alright, well, you are a well-known personality for different reasons. 16 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:41,000 You are a computer games expert, a TV personality, an influencer, but also, and that's the main thing for us here, a football fanatic. 17 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:49,000 Football fanatic, yes, certainly. I realized during my career, which mostly covered computer games, 18 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:55,000 that I really followed football and I kicked off some projects during the years. 19 00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:02,000 Most important was like Premiership.cz, which was like 2007-2008. 20 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:10,000 And after many years I realized that I want to start some small projects, so I kicked off football fanatics. 21 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:19,000 At the beginning mostly like Facebook blog kind of focus on transfer rumors. 22 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:29,000 And it was a TV show for one year, so I'm really glad and I'm enjoying it. It's kind of a passion project for me. 23 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:36,000 No, I am subscribed to it. It is in Czech, we should say, because this podcast is in English. It's a YouTube channel, right? 24 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:48,000 It's a YouTube channel as well, with very low Zip production, but just me talking for an hour about the stuff and no editing, no videos, mixing. 25 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:51,000 So it is what it is. 26 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:55,000 Well, sometimes these are the best, because they are the most authentic ones. 27 00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:58,000 It's currently authentic. 28 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:01,000 That's what we like here on the Footglitch podcast. 29 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:08,000 But we can see you are a Liverpool fan. Also from that channel, I know you are a Sparta Prague fan. 30 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:09,000 Of course. 31 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:13,000 But today you are also a Czech fan. Should I say Czechia fan? 32 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:20,000 Well, I kind of struggle with Czechia still, so I don't care if you say Czech Republic. 33 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:27,000 I'm still used to it, but I'm a fan of both teams, yes, Czechia and Czech Republic. 34 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:35,000 We should explain it's just one team, but we have two different names of the same country, which no one understands why it even happened. 35 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:39,000 Certainly, yes. 36 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:46,000 Right, so what are you expecting tonight then? The first game against Portugal, one of the favourites of the tournament. 37 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:48,000 A tough game to start, right? 38 00:03:48,000 --> 00:04:00,000 Not much. Of course, I'm looking forward to our start for Euros, but I think Portugal is one of the main favourites. 39 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:10,000 Probably they will get some medals, and when you compare those squads, it's going to be really tough. 40 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:21,000 So I don't expect much. Usually when I don't expect much, I might be surprised, but I don't think I'll be surprised today. 41 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:29,000 OK, so if you were to bet, because I know you are also a betting man, so if you were to bet on anything in this game, what would it be then? 42 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:40,000 It probably would be that Portugal will win for more than one goal. That's what I expect. 43 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:56,000 Because the friendly games before the tournament wasn't great. We picked kind of... I don't want to offend anybody, but it wasn't eight teams we played, and we struggled with them. 44 00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:09,000 We had some very weird injuries, which the main coach tried to cover. It was on the bike, it wasn't on the bike. 45 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:18,000 So it kind of reminds me of the good old football in the Czech Republic, which is not really a great position. 46 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:34,000 But there are still some great guys, and they're not in great shape, I guess. Like Schick, Sofas, Socek, Locek. They didn't have a great season. 47 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:49,000 So we will see, but sometimes it's a tournament. I expect us to lose today, but there are games with Turkey and Georgia, which hopefully will get us through the group. 48 00:05:49,000 --> 00:06:04,000 Well, as you said, there have been some tough things happening around the team. Some weird injuries, an injury on a bicycle or was it a tricycle? Someone trying to go downhill in the mountains. 49 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:11,000 A bit weird. You would do something like that, an adrenaline sport as a professional footballer preparing yourself for the Euro. 50 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:21,000 Exactly. It's a bit strange. Also, we need to mention that we have had a manager change, which was quite significant and really surprising for foreign media. 51 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:33,000 Basically, we had a manager who got us to the Euros, right? We qualified, and that manager decided to resign on the last day at a press conference. 52 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:43,000 So now we have a new manager, and he has won all four friendly matches so far, but as you said, he hasn't really covered himself in much glory with those performances. 53 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:49,000 Could that be a good thing? Could that be a good thing that maybe he's hiding his tactics? 54 00:06:49,000 --> 00:07:07,000 He's a very clever, very wise guy. I don't want to show the world how strong we are. Hopefully, I don't expect that, but on the other side, Jaroslaw Šilhavi, who is the former manager of the national team, 55 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:25,000 he had some issues with mostly behavior. There is a famous party in Olomouc, which three guys during the qualifications group went to pop with all the social media coverage these days. 56 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:28,000 It was a club, wasn't it? It was a club. 57 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:33,000 Belmondo is very famous from that day. 58 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:35,000 It's more famous now after that. 59 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:37,000 Certainly, certainly. 60 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:43,000 It's such a great marketing event. 61 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:50,000 Let's invite some three drunken Czech national team guys to hop up and we will be famous. 62 00:07:50,000 --> 00:08:05,000 I understood that he resigned and I understood that they picked Ivan Hasek, which I heard on some podcasts like Totalit Football Show that Ivan Hasek, so it's called Ivan Hasek. 63 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:24,000 He's a great person from my point of view, but from his career-wise, it's not top-class 10-20 years. Again, that's the reason I don't have big expectations. 64 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:31,000 He's certainly a strict guy, which I think was necessary. 65 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:42,000 I kind of like his down-to-earth approach, especially when he admitted that they had made a mistake when they tried to cover the injury. I like that. 66 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:52,000 Also, it seems to be that he's quite positive as well when it comes to presenting himself in the media and in press conferences. He speaks in a positive way. 67 00:08:52,000 --> 00:09:06,000 I think this is the right approach, rather than, for example, in the Belgium team, where Kevin de Bruyne says, almost as if they don't stand any chance, some sort of negativity before the game against Slovakia. 68 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:08,000 And then, no surprise, they lost that game. 69 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:17,000 That's for the second time. He had the same quote before the World Cup in Qatar, so I don't really get it. 70 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:26,000 If that was like, okay, ease the pressure, we are not the favorites of the tournament, then it certainly didn't work, as we can see. 71 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:32,000 Yeah. Okay, then. Well, tonight, you think we will probably lose. 72 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:46,000 What would be your tactics if you were in the position of Ivan Hasek? Is it more important not to concede many goals, to stand a good chance later in the later part of this group stage, or should we just go for it? 73 00:09:46,000 --> 00:10:01,000 I think the wise approach is to not concede as many as we probably will, because, you know, as a group, there's a high chance that Portugal beat everyone in this group. 74 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:21,000 So that might, with some draws, that might help. But I think Ivan Hasek is kind of, I don't understand why he doesn't really use data, because I read some interviews, especially like those days, he might change. 75 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:36,000 It was like, oh, data, I'm the football man, you know, I can see it. But in 2024, data is like, I think it's crucial part. I don't want to say the most important, but it's crucial. 76 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:54,000 It can help you a lot, you know, understand your weakness, strength, understand weakness and strength of the opponent. So I really hope that their assistants, which are much younger, and I guess, much more modern, with modern approach, then they will take care of it. 77 00:10:54,000 --> 00:11:05,000 So we will see anyway, Portugal is like, you know, you can name, you can name 11, the starting 11 from your head, and it's not usual, because they are superstars. 78 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:22,000 Absolutely. Now, I should ask you about Ronaldo as well. Obviously, he is the biggest name here. And is it actually an advantage for us that he's in the team and he will probably start? Could that be an advantage? Because I heard some pundits say it in that kind of way, which is strange. 79 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:46,000 Yeah, in modern day, like, you have to press, you have to press high. He's not really famous for that. It's not his specialty. So it might help us on the other side, he might score three times and kind of, you know, confirm that he's one of the best players ever. 80 00:11:46,000 --> 00:12:15,000 Okay, so do so you expect some kind of park the bus style? Or will we be more active? What do you think we will just sit back and I think we will sit back and we will see. There's like Bruno Fernandes, which is really good to be, you know, the final final passes. So and the team is full of, you know, stars, Bernardo Silva, my god, what a player is it? 81 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:42,000 Yeah, okay, so we'll probably be defending in like 1011 players. That's not going to be much fun. But if it brings the results, then I'm up for it personally. And we have seen David Moyes at West Ham. We've got two players who play for West Ham so check and so far, so they are very pretty much used to that kind of style. So perhaps that's what's going to happen there. But we could also all be surprised. 82 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:47,000 And another thing could happen is that we get underestimated by our opponent. 83 00:12:47,000 --> 00:13:01,000 I don't think that with the with the first game, you know, they are looking forward for both season almost everybody that they will underestimate us. We surprise that will be the biggest surprise of the surprise is possible. 84 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:08,000 Speaking of surprises, what do you make of yesterday's results of the Slovak team against Belgium. 85 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:30,000 I thought just I thought so just first half so I can see that Belgium is kind of accepted docu which is like super fast and super skilled as great ribbing. But they are kind of bit slower than than they probably should be. And it wasn't big surprise. 86 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:53,000 Like I didn't expect much from Belgium, I must say. They are they are like you know, the first team should be be promoted from this group. But we saw it in Qatar that this golden generation is a bit rusty these days. So it's probably we will see but it might be their end. 87 00:13:53,000 --> 00:14:09,000 Fair enough. That's definitely got off to a terrible start, especially because Slovakia, especially after what had happened in the previous match, you know, Romania, Romania beating Ukraine, it's gonna be quite tough now for for Belgium to even get out of this group. 88 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:26,000 They still have Romania and Ukraine. They Ukraine I was of course I'm like big fan from obvious reasons. But they didn't look like they are ready for it. So we will see the depression must be like unbelievable, you know. 89 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:34,000 At least they can bring some football results, you know, home, and it probably won't happen. 90 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:47,000 And as a Sparta Prague fan, how did the goal that Stanchu scored make you feel I wonder because Stanchu used to play for Sparta, he didn't win any titles there at all. Then he moved to Slavia. 91 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:56,000 He did much better there. Now he's in Saudi Arabia, but I think he's a Romanian captain and he scored a wonder goal. It was an absolute screamer. 92 00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:06,000 So how did that make you feel? I wonder. Well, I don't have a hard feelings. Of course, when he left Sparta Prague, it was kind of a traitor. 93 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:11,000 Judas. I don't have hard feelings. He's a traitor Judas. 94 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:30,000 That was like the you know, the whole atmosphere. I got it. I got it. And he's a brilliant player and slightly sad that he's playing in Saudi Arabia. I don't follow that leak. I understand that the money are probably different from the rest of the world. 95 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:44,000 But I would love to see him in some, you know, top five, top five leagues and he's still gorgeous. Yeah, we saw it. We saw it in Prague. We saw it in Slavia slightly more. 96 00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:58,000 He's a very talented player indeed. And any other players that play for Sparta Prague at the tournament or indeed Liverpool FC, the two teams you support any other players that have impressed you so far in the Euros? 97 00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:03,000 Well, of course, Harasin has a great game yesterday for Slovakia. 98 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:15,000 And I saw Virgil, Virgil, of course, he didn't seem like in great shape. I think that the first goal was slightly his mistake. 99 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:30,000 But I had a feeling from the other end that they are always able to switch to another gear and kind of push more and play more aggressive and better. So it wasn't great game. 100 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:36,000 But I expect I expect them and certainly they will go to quarterfinals kind of. 101 00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:47,000 And also the best player of the Czech League, Vilko Birmancevic, I didn't think he played really well in that cameo he had like 20 minute cameo. What do you think of that? 102 00:16:47,000 --> 00:17:06,000 I didn't I didn't see that see this game. So I so I don't know. That's great. Serbia for me is kind of you know, there is a bigger group of possible dark horses. Serbia certainly was certainly one of them before the tournament and they kind of confirm it. 103 00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:15,000 Absolutely. Well, Mikolaj, tell us again where we can find you. If there are any listeners that can speak Czech, where can they find you? 104 00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:24,000 I have a football fanatics YouTube channel published weekly. It's really it's really passion side project. It's not my main business. 105 00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:40,000 But usually I'm trying to do my best to at least every morning or midday or afternoon to bring some rumors on on our Facebook page, which is kind of you know, just kind of boomer stuff, you know, Facebook. 106 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:56,000 I like the writings about it and the other the other social medias are not suitable for it. Instagram, especially TikTok, because I'm not on TikTok for also obvious reasons. 107 00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:59,000 And I'm with you on that. 108 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:08,000 So so Facebook, Facebook and YouTube football fanatics sees that probably because there are many football fanatics, but I hope you'll find the proper one. 109 00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:12,000 Football fanatics as in there is an apostrophe as well, because it belongs to you. 110 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:20,000 It's your sort of channel because football fanatics, it could be the plural of the word fanatic or it could be with the apostrophe. 111 00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:26,000 So that's the one you have. It's kind of that's that's that's a good good good that you mention it. 112 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:33,000 That was my reason. Like it's mine. But as we are football fanatics, we can we can work on it together. 113 00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:37,000 Mostly I'm working on it by myself, but I love it. 114 00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:39,000 Yeah, no, it's fun. It's fun. I'm a fan. 115 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:44,000 OK, thank you very much, Mikolaj, for featuring on today's episode of the Footgrish podcast. 116 00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:48,000 And let's go Czechs. Let's go. Come on. Come on. 117 00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:54,000 Cheers. Bye. 118 00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:56,000 All right, guys, welcome back. 119 00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:01,000 And in this part of the show, I'm going to teach you something because I'm an English teacher, you see. 120 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:04,000 So I might as well do my job here. 121 00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:10,000 Mikolaj said there's a high chance that Portugal beat everyone in this group. 122 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:14,000 And I really like the way he uses the verb beat here. 123 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:20,000 Now, you might think, why is it not beats? Portugal is a singular noun, isn't it? 124 00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:24,000 Yes, it is. It is the name of a country. So it is a singular noun. 125 00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:26,000 Also, we call it a proper noun. 126 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:36,000 But when you are referring to a team, the Portuguese team, which certainly Mikolaj was talking about, 127 00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:41,000 then we can really use the verb in this form as if it was plural. 128 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:45,000 And that's because team is a collective noun. 129 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:52,000 A collective noun is a noun which refers to a group of people. 130 00:19:52,000 --> 00:20:00,000 So in English, we can either use a singular verb after a collective noun or a plural verb. 131 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:07,000 Now, the difference is that if you, for example, say that this team is playing well, 132 00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:11,000 you are basically focusing on the team as a unit. 133 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:13,000 You mean the club, right? 134 00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:16,000 But you don't care about the individual so much. 135 00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:23,000 Maybe a better example would be this team has established itself on the map of the world football. 136 00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:25,000 I don't know, maybe Georgia. 137 00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:33,000 Now, if you are referring to the players, if you want to emphasize and stress the individual members of that team, 138 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:39,000 then you can really or you should certainly use the verb in the plural form. 139 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:45,000 So, for example, you would say something like the Czech team are not playing really well tonight 140 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:49,000 or the Portuguese team are excellent tonight. 141 00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:56,000 And this is very common in football commentaries in the UK. 142 00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:05,000 So you may hear things like Arsenal are under the kosh today or Liverpool play excellent football these days. 143 00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:08,000 Or I don't know, something like that. 144 00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:10,000 So hopefully this is clear. 145 00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:13,000 I can give you some more examples of collective nouns. 146 00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:17,000 These are words like family, police, board. 147 00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:20,000 What else is there? Government. 148 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:26,000 Yeah, so it's either followed by a verb in a singular form or a verb in a plural form, 149 00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:28,000 depending on what you want to emphasize. 150 00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:30,000 OK, so thank you very much, guys. 151 00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:31,000 That's it. That's it. 152 00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:35,000 Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast if you like football. 153 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:39,000 And if you want to learn something here, this is the right place for you. 154 00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:41,000 And I've just started with this podcast. 155 00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:45,000 So I'm trying to find some sort of audience. 156 00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:48,000 So it's going to take some time for this podcast to take off. 157 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:52,000 But with your help and support, we can get there one day. 158 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:54,000 So thank you very much for listening. 159 00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:56,000 And let's go Czechs again. 160 00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:03,000 We need to win it or draw or lose by not so many goals, I guess. 161 00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:15,000 Bye bye, guys. Cheers.