1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,000 You're listening to the Footglish Podcast. 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,000 Love football, learn English. 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:12,000 Were Italy's performances in the group stage convincing? 4 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:16,000 Why do the Italians sometimes tend to flop at big tournaments? 5 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:20,000 Are Italy likely to do better in the knockout stages? 6 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:44,000 And how are the verbs to outclass and outperform used? 7 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:47,000 Hello everyone, welcome back to the Footglish Podcast. 8 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:51,000 My name is Denik Lucas and if you love football and want to learn English, 9 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:55,000 the Footglish Podcast is the right podcast for you. 10 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:57,000 So make sure you subscribe to it. 11 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,000 And today I'm joined by an Italian fan. 12 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:05,000 We haven't talked about Italy here yet, so that's exactly what we need to do. 13 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:08,000 Welcome to the podcast Domenico. How are you? 14 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:11,000 Thank you. Thank you, Denik, and thanks for having me. 15 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,000 And hi everybody, of course. 16 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:16,000 It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure, man. 17 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:22,000 So Italy, not exactly an amazing group stage, I would say. 18 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:26,000 But we also have to say that you had a really tough group. 19 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:33,000 It was a group of death, right? With Spain, Croatia and Albania. 20 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:36,000 So you got the job done in the end. 21 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:40,000 In the very end, I would say. 22 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,000 That's right. 23 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:48,000 Yeah, I mean, the first game against Albania, I think, apart from the goal, 24 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:52,000 it was a bit unfortunate, of course. 25 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,000 It was a good game. 26 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:58,000 I mean, Italy played fairly well, especially during the first half. 27 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:03,000 So I'm quite happy about the way Italy played in the first match. 28 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:08,000 The second one we got absolutely destroyed by Spain. 29 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:16,000 And thanks to Donnarumma, who is our amazing goalkeeper, 30 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:21,000 we managed to just lose 1-0. 31 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:28,000 But we were absolutely outclassed in that game, I would say. 32 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:30,000 Yeah, I watched that game. 33 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:34,000 And Spain are generally one of the best teams of the tournament so far. 34 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:36,000 Yeah, I would say so. I agree. 35 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:42,000 I think for your morale, it was good that you only lost by one goal. 36 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:46,000 In the end, it didn't matter what was more important. 37 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:52,000 What was really important was the last game where you secured your playoff spot. 38 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:55,000 Yeah, in round of 16, yeah, sure. 39 00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:04,000 I mean, the game against Croatia, despite this thing that we just scored in the very last second, I would say. 40 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:06,000 I mean, Italy played fairly well too, I think. 41 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:09,000 It was quite a balanced match. 42 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:15,000 And then, of course, they scored and they got a chance to go 2-0. 43 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:20,000 That was the goal. Absolutely. That was the goal by Luka Modric, of course. 44 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:24,000 First, he missed the penalty. I was watching the game. 45 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:27,000 And then 20 seconds later, he managed to score and everybody was... 46 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:31,000 All the neutrals absolutely loved it because who doesn't love Luka Modric? 47 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:34,000 He's such a popular player around the world. 48 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:43,000 And then they were literally seconds away from qualifying themselves Croatia, right? 49 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:47,000 They would have been on enough points. 50 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:55,000 And you were in an unpredictable position because you had more points than Albania at that point, right? 51 00:03:55,000 --> 00:03:56,000 Yeah. 52 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:03,000 I mean, they would have secured the second spot in the group, Croatia, so they would have advanced. 53 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:15,000 And Italy, in hindsight, would have not been able to participate in the round of 16 because with only three points... 54 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:25,000 There are many teams who have secured the round of 16s ending in the third spot with four points. 55 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:35,000 And there's even Ukraine, which were very unfortunate because every team in that group has four points. 56 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:41,000 And then because of the goal difference, blah, blah, blah, I don't know. 57 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:50,000 It's this complicated stuff. Romania is in first place and Ukraine... 58 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:54,000 There was a group, in this group, all teams were on four points. 59 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:56,000 On four points, exactly. 60 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:59,000 And it was only about the goal difference, basically. 61 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:04,000 Each of these teams has a win, draw and a defeat. 62 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:05,000 Exactly. 63 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:16,000 I remember the same thing that happened when Italy lost to Brazil in the World Cup final in 1994. 64 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:24,000 In that group, every team had exactly four points with one win, one loss, one draw, and then we managed to advance. 65 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:38,000 At Italy, despite not being the best team, I think that when they advance to the round of 16 stage and then quarterfinals and so on, they are very dangerous. 66 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:46,000 Absolutely, because you have your system, you always have a system, you have a strategy, a very good defense. 67 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:49,000 But I just want to go back to what you already pointed out. 68 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:55,000 If you hadn't drawn that game against Croatia, you would have been on three points. 69 00:05:55,000 --> 00:06:00,000 And I was looking at the group of the best third places, right? 70 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:03,000 And you would have been in the fifth place. 71 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:05,000 Yeah, we would have been out, of course. 72 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:18,000 Yeah, right behind Slovenia. Slovenia are the last third place team who made it because they have three draws with three points. 73 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:25,000 On a goal difference, they made it because Hungary are in the fifth place and they have minus three. 74 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:32,000 Croatia are in the sixth place. So it would have been you there in the fifth place. 75 00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:41,000 Yeah, but here we are. Tomorrow we are playing. So the past doesn't exist in football. 76 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:44,000 Absolutely. But you escaped death in the last minute. 77 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:59,000 Yeah, but what I just told you, I remember like historically, Italy either gets eliminated in the group stages or if they advance, 78 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:12,000 I don't want to say like always, but they very rarely, they often manage to advance and hopefully get to the finals. 79 00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:19,000 So what would you attribute this to? Why is it like that? Why do you think so? 80 00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:32,000 I think that there is always a lot of pressure on the team and then these players, they can perform under pressure sometimes. 81 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:42,000 Kind of this sense of revenge. There are some characters like Mourinho, for example, who are like us against the world and stuff like this. 82 00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:49,000 For example, when we won the World Cup in 1984, the situation was almost tragic. 83 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:56,000 Politically, it was almost dramatic and we managed to become world champions. 84 00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:05,000 And the same exact thing happened in 2006 when there was this doping scandals in Italy. 85 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:12,000 So the team was under a lot of pressure. Then we managed to escape. I don't know if you remember this, when TopDiscord 86 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:20,000 this penalty against Australia. We almost went out of the competition and then we won. 87 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:32,000 In 1994, the exact same thing. We were about to lose twice to Nigeria and then Bajor, my favorite player of all time. 88 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:41,000 Roberto Bajor, I remember. He had a ponytail. Exactly. The divine ponytail. 89 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:53,000 He managed to score two goals and we survived. Then we were beaten by Brazil in the penalties, but we managed to reach the final. 90 00:08:53,000 --> 00:09:04,000 I don't know why, but it's almost always like this. People are skeptical at the beginning. There is a lot of criticism about this team, 91 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:11,000 but trust me, a lot of criticism in Italy. We are such a bad team and stuff like this. 92 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:19,000 But then when we advanced, the country is supporting the team and things change. 93 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:30,000 That's good. The better vibe is coming now. But I have to say you're not the only sleeping giant at the tournament that is underperforming. 94 00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:42,000 We have to mention France and England. I think all these three teams, Italy, France and England, are kind of in the same boat in terms of under par performances. 95 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:55,000 Absolutely. When I talk with people about who's going to be the champions, we are talking about which team is better and which team is not. 96 00:09:55,000 --> 00:10:01,000 Not a lot of people mention France. I don't know why. I absolutely agree with you. 97 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:10,000 But for me, they are not a sleeping giant because for me, they're just the best team. It's just a matter of if they want to play or not. 98 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:22,000 They only scored one goal from the penalty and then there was one own goal. They only have two goals and one of them is an own goal. 99 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:25,000 I'm not sure about them at the moment. 100 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:35,000 But it's just the groups. It's just like in the NBA, there's the regular season, which is a competition, and then there's playoffs, which is another completely different beast. 101 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:45,000 I don't know why nobody's expecting France to perform well, but I think they are among the favorites, of course. Now I think they are playing Belgium, right? 102 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:47,000 I'm not sure. I think so. 103 00:10:47,000 --> 00:11:10,000 So they have this tough match. They're playing Belgium, which is going to be maybe the best match in the round of 16. The most balanced one, the most interesting one. But if they manage to win that match, which I think they will, honestly, I mean, France is going to advance in my opinion. 104 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:14,000 I think they can win the whole thing. No problem. 105 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:24,000 I also have to mention, Domenico, that your path, your route to the final in the round of 16 seems to be the easier one, right? 106 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:39,000 That's exactly what they say in England. The media in the UK, they say exactly the same thing because the two biggest names in your path are you and England. 107 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:41,000 England, exactly. 108 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:58,000 And then you have, so potentially, so you're playing against Switzerland on Saturday. So potentially, if you win that game, then potentially you might play England. And if you beat England, it would probably be someone like the Netherlands in the semifinal. 109 00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:01,000 And then Bob's your uncle, you're in the final. 110 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:20,000 Yeah, true. Yeah, this is another thing which is very funny because there are a lot of memes in Italy right now about this thing of being that we are lucky. We have been lucky against Greece and we are lucky that we have this favorable draw, we can say. 111 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:32,000 But you know, in this kind of events, you never know. It's true that we know, you know, we are facing Switzerland, but Switzerland, actually, we can say it's a better team than we are right now. 112 00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:43,000 But I think I am very confident that we can manage to win because, you know, we have something more than they do in this kind of games, I think, like historically. 113 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:58,000 I would be, you are right, I agree. Sometimes it's down to history and this kind of vibe and energy, right, from the fans and self-confidence. But I think the Swiss are no mugs. 114 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:06,000 You should not underestimate the Swiss because, for example, in the previous Euro, they beat Spain on penalties. 115 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:16,000 Remember, I believe it was when Spain were, no, sorry, it was France. France, I think France, right? Yeah, they beat France. 116 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:24,000 And I think they were 3-1 up or something like that. And then they managed to equalize and they won it on penalties. So I would be very careful about the Swiss. 117 00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:27,000 They are a good team for sure. Absolutely. 118 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:38,000 And they played their last match of the group stage against Germany. I did not see that game, but from what I heard, they were the better team. 119 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:48,000 Yeah, me neither. Germany just scored in the final minutes, right? And they could draw that match and then Switzerland was even winning. Yeah, but it's true. 120 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:55,000 But as I told you, for me, groups and round of 16 are, you know, it's a different story. 121 00:13:55,000 --> 00:14:00,000 Okay, so what's your prediction then? I think Italy is going to advance. 122 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:10,000 I think Italy is going to advance and maybe in extra time. In extra time. It's going to be a tough match. Maybe 1-1. Let's see. 123 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:15,000 Let's see if I can get this right. It's just a prediction, of course. Very tough. 124 00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:27,000 So I would say 1-1 and then we advance and we score the 2-1 in extra time and we advance to quarterfinals, hopefully. 125 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:37,000 Sounds like a plan. We should say you are the current holders. So, you know. Yeah, exactly. Defending champions. 126 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:46,000 Defending champions. That has to count for something, right? So three years ago, you beat, we need to remind everyone, you beat England on penalties. 127 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:53,000 So let's see. In England. This is the most important thing. We beat England in England. 128 00:14:53,000 --> 00:15:01,000 They absolutely hated it. They absolutely hated it. I can tell you that. 129 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:09,000 You know, the most, the funniest meme I've seen about this, which is not amazing and stuff is that, I don't know if you remember, 130 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:16,000 the Steven Bradbury guy who won the Olympic gold in like, it was skating maybe. 131 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:23,000 So everybody in front of him just fell down, you know, and then he won the whole thing. 132 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:31,000 And that's the meme about Italy doing the same thing, you know, so everybody, you know, falling down in Italy maybe. 133 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:39,000 Speed skating and short track. I remember that. It was at Winter Olympic Games. Yeah. 134 00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:45,000 Well, we will see what happens. We will see how it happens. You have a well balanced team, I would say. 135 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:51,000 I guess, your defense as usual, you're cutting arch, all right. The goalkeeper is Donnarumma. 136 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:57,000 The goalkeeper is the best goalkeeper of this competition. 137 00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:03,000 Your goalkeeping school is really good because before you had Buffon, now Donnarumma. 138 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:10,000 So it's really about your offense because that seems to be your weakness at this point. 139 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:14,000 So why do you think that's the case? 140 00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:26,000 I don't know if it's very tough to explain because historically we've had, you know, golden generations, you know, with the Inzaghi, Totti, Del Piero, Baccio, of course, a long time ago. 141 00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:37,000 I don't know why, but in the last decades, we could say, because I think we haven't had a decent striker in decades, honestly. 142 00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:41,000 No offense to, you know, even Mokpe. 143 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:46,000 Gianluca Scamacca now. Scamacca is very young. I think he's very talented. 144 00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:58,000 So I think he's a better player than Immobile, for example, for me. I know this is not a very popular opinion, but he can play with the team much better than Immobile could do. 145 00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:04,000 So I'm very confident in what he can do. And he had a great season this year with Atalanta. 146 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:06,000 That's right. Yeah. 147 00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:15,000 And then I'm very confident, you know, he's no Totti, of course. He's no even Gilardino, you know. 148 00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:23,000 Nothing compares with these guys. But I think, you know, he can do the job. Exactly. 149 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:32,000 And then I'm very confident about how Chiesa can perform. I think there are a lot of players who can do very well when stakes are high. 150 00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:37,000 So, for example, I can mention, yeah, well, the stakes are definitely high. 151 00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:42,000 Yeah. Let's see. Let's see what happens. I wish you all the best, Domenico. Thank you. Thank you. 152 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:47,000 I hope you make it through and we will see. We will see what happens next. 153 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:57,000 And yeah, you have already outperformed the Czech Republic. So congratulations. That wasn't very hard. That wasn't very hard this time. 154 00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:04,000 Yeah, but you had a tough group. Yeah, honestly. The first game was good. No, no. Yours was harder. Yours was harder. 155 00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:13,000 We messed up. We messed up royally. So anyway, that's not what we were here to talk about. We were here to talk about the Italian team. 156 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:20,000 Thank you for telling me about your team, Domenico, and all the best to you. Thank you for having me, Zdeni. 157 00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:23,000 It was a pleasure. Bye bye. Yeah, bye bye. See you. Bye. 158 00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:34,000 Welcome back. In this part of the show, as always, I will be teaching you something because, as you know, I'm an English teacher. 159 00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:41,000 I have to do my job. And that's exactly what's going to happen here. Domenico said we were absolutely outclassed in that game. 160 00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:50,000 Remember, he was talking about the Italy-Spain game where Spain won 1-0, but they absolutely dominated Italy. 161 00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:57,000 So when you say that your team was outclassed, that means that the other team performed much better than you. 162 00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:04,000 It means that the other team did much better than you. It means that the other team was superior to you. 163 00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:16,000 OK, but it's a very nice little verb to use there. And similarly to that, at the end of the podcast, I said, you've already outperformed the Czech Republic. 164 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:27,000 I was referring to Italy. I was saying that Italy made it to the knockout stages, whereas the Czech Republic, unfortunately, are going home because we finished last in our group. 165 00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:37,000 Yeah, I don't want to talk about that anymore because, you know, you don't want me to get mad on this podcast again, as I did in the previous episode, do you? 166 00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:45,000 Or is that something that you actually enjoy? I wonder. Anyway, let me repeat the sentence because now we have all forgotten what it was. 167 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:55,000 You've already outperformed the Czech Republic, right? So I was referring to the fact that Italy are still in the tournament, whereas the Czech Republic isn't. 168 00:19:55,000 --> 00:20:05,000 To outperform someone again means the same thing pretty much as to outclass someone. It means to perform better than someone else, to do better than someone else. 169 00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:15,000 I think outclass is more about the skill, you know, if someone has class, it's like skill, you were outclassed, right? 170 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:21,000 So the skill of the Spanish team was so much better than the Italian team, whereas to outperform is about the overall performance. 171 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:30,000 But more or less, these words mean the same thing. And there are more verbs which start with out in English. You could outdo someone. 172 00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:41,000 You could outrun someone. You know, there are more verbs like that. And they all have pretty much a similar meaning, meaning that someone is superior to someone else. 173 00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:49,000 Someone does better than someone else. OK, guys, I hope you are finding these language corners useful. 174 00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:57,000 I hope you always learn something from me. 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