You're listening to the Footglish podcast. Love football, learn English.
Which Slovakian player is absolutely obsessed with football?
Which England player gives excellent interviews to the media?
What does the former Czech international Pavel Horváth think about Bellingham's obscene gesture in the match against Slovakia?
And what the hell is the schwa sound?
Hello, my name is Denek Lukas and you're listening to the Footglish podcast.
A show that allows you to score goals in your English learning journey.
And we are discussing Euro 2024, specifically the round of 16.
And today I'm joined by Martin Vinhá. Hi, Martin, how are you?
Hello, Denek. Thank you for being with you.
And I think I'm OK. A little bit tired because I had a radio show in the early morning, but hopefully I'll find some energy.
Excellent. I have to confess something, Martin. I was stalking you a bit.
I looked at your LinkedIn and it says that you are a swimming instructor.
We won't. I don't think we will need that for this.
So this is a football podcast.
So you are also a radio and TV presenter and Premier League and England expert, which means we are definitely we definitely have to talk about the Slovakia England game.
Are you ready for that? Yeah, I think I'm ready.
I was swimming teacher for, I don't know, eight or nine years.
But right now I'm concentrating only on media and I'm happy that I don't have to work because the media is kind of a hobby for me.
So I think I'm a happy person.
We love to interview happy people on the foot.
That's exactly the kind of people we need here.
And first of all, I need to ask you. So you are Czech, just like me.
We are countrymen. Most Czech people, I would say, supported Slovakia in this game.
And so did the rest of Europe, let's be honest.
But I know you also love England. So who did you cheer for in this game?
That's a great question, because my feelings were mixed a little bit.
But I found myself in 30 minutes that I'm quite happy that Slovakia are better than England, honestly.
And I think the main reason is England is full of superstars.
But, you know, Slovakian team is like they have the spirit.
They have to fight to achieve something.
And I had a feeling when I was watching the game that Trippier, Walker and, you know, Bellingham, Rice, they're like, don't worry, we're playing Premier League, so we will score somehow.
But, you know, they didn't. Or of course they did. But they did it for 90 minutes.
They had to find the goal thanks to one of the best footballers in the world right now.
And that's Jude Bellingham.
But to answer your question, I think I was like 60 percent Slovakian fan, 40 percent English.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I'm with you on that, especially because of the whole context of England underperforming, heavily underperforming, really like not showing anything in the tournament, making it out of the group, like without any sort of showing us anything, really, the fans, you know,
and have heavily criticised by the media, of course.
And on the other hand, you had Slovakians who beat Belgium and who played really good football in the tournament.
And then these two teams in a tie.
And then, as you said, the England players, they did not really start well, did they?
I mean, Slovakians, they started really brightly and bravely and they had a few early chances.
And then they even took the lead through Ivan Šránc and 25th minute, right?
Yeah, it's a huge topic that Ivan Šránc scored three goals because he wasn't the player who started every game for Slavia this season.
So I know many Slavia fans.
So, you know, they are surprised that he was so, so good.
And right now they are, on the other hand, very happy that he's so, so good because hopefully he will be as good as he was on this tournament for Slavia next season.
So we will see. But Slovakian team is full of, I don't know, secret superstars, maybe I would call them.
Lobotka is one of the best sentiment fillers in the world, I think right now.
And they got Haraslin, which is a very good swinger for Sparta Prague as well.
And David Hansko, I hope honestly that he will come to Premier League this season because we had David in the last studio at Canal Plus Sport during last season.
And I have to say he knows everything about football.
You know, he lives football, he breathes football.
He's like, it has to be crazy to be boyfriend of David Hansko because our girlfriend, you know, because because he's still with football.
So incredible. Yeah, I don't know.
That's maybe the reason why Slovakian were successful in this tournament.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
But going back to that first goal, actually, it was an interesting moment because basically Ivan Šránc got past Gai.
I think that's the way we pronounce, I still start struggling with pronunciation of his name, the Crystal Palace right back.
He got past him. Gai was already on a yellow card.
And I think he fouled him. I think he fouled him.
And Ivan Šránc decided to continue and scored the goal.
Do you think if he had gone to the ground instead, it would have probably been a penalty, right?
And a red. Do you think Slovakia might have won the game?
Well, that's the question. Yeah, but that's very nice gesture from Šránc that he scored, actually.
And I think that's the right gesture.
On the other hand, if he went to ground, then it will be the second yellow card and a penalty.
So you are probably right. But anyway, you have to score against England when you have even very small chance.
And they did. So it was a very sad moment in the 95th, 50th minute that they conceded.
Because I think in the first half, there's no doubt that Slovakia were a better team.
They were a better team.
And the next day I was reading the media and there were some critics about the performance from the second half of Slovakia.
And that they were only defending, you know, they put the wall from behind.
But I totally understand your one-nil up against the biggest favorites.
To me, it looks like most of the teams would do that.
Even England did that when they were 2-1 up in the extra time.
I mean, it's just what teams do these days. They park the bus. It's effective. It works.
And especially if you are a lesser team.
Like at that point Slovakia, I mean, maybe they also had to exert a lot of energy in that game.
And then, you know, the Italian coach, what's his name? Calzone?
Calzone.
I think he started subbing some people off, right?
And bringing on more defensive players, as far as I remember.
And perhaps it's just what happened.
And they were literally one minute away from winning it.
But then something incredible happened.
Gareth Southgate brought on Ivan Thoney, who flicked on.
It was a throw-in, right? From Kyle Walker, I think.
Exactly. And then it was Marghiehi, firstly.
It was Marghiehi who assisted Bellingham's goal.
And then it was the overhead kick. And Thoney assisted the hurricane in extra time.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
No, that's fine. But I think Ivan Thoney had an impact on this game. That's for sure.
It was a great substitution.
And I think Gareth Southgate was like, you know, he had to be so happy inside.
Even though he tried to pretend he's very cold, I think he wasn't. I think he wasn't.
So very, very happy moment for the whole country.
I don't know if you saw the videos. So many fans left the stadium in 90 second minutes, I think.
And they went to PUP. They were sure that England are out of the tournament.
And then the magic Bellingham made it or did it again.
Sometimes it's incredible how thin the line between failure and success is.
Literally Gareth Southgate, I heard on an English podcast that he was more or still is probably more hated than the current Prime Minister of the UK.
Yes.
And then he's stubborn. He was stubborn. Right. He brought on Ivan Thoney.
I mean, one minute to the end of the game.
Ivan Thoney was upset with him as well. And he did it anyway.
He's sometimes he's so stubborn. Right.
But the way he used to stuck with Maguire and we have so many stories with him.
But it's working. Right.
England haven't been playing, haven't been getting better results with any other manager for a long time. Right.
So, yeah, he's eight years in charge.
That's quite a long period.
That's the first thing. And the second thing, he's similar to Jaroslav Shilhavy, I think, in some things, because, as you said very well, he's stubborn.
You know, he has favourites players who sometimes even doesn't play for their clubs during the season.
And I think Harry Maguire is one of them.
But he's injured. So right now he plays stones and where he.
But I think I think the general problem is that that when you look at the English squad, they really have the golden generation.
So I totally understand the expectations.
They need the trophy right now because you got Foden who was fantastic during during this season.
You got Palmer was fantastic.
Kane was fantastic for Bayern Munich.
You know, Saka, he's a superstar at the Arsenal team.
Declan Rice. Wow. What a transfer last last summer.
So they are individually very, very good players, maybe one of the best.
But I don't see them as a great team.
Exactly. You know, I feel like I feel there has to be some battles in the dressing room because I don't I don't feel they support each other.
That's the problem.
I know you have these other countries like Denmark, Switzerland and Slovakia, Georgia.
These these have individually worse players like by far, even when you look at the salary of these players.
But you have you have this saying, you know, the the the whole is better than the sum of its parts.
Right. When you have a great team, it can create miracles sometimes.
And, you know, England will have a tough time if they really want to win by by showing these kinds of performances.
But it was indeed a moment of brilliance from Jude Bellingham.
I mean, this is why we watch football. Right.
Unless I suppose you support Slovakia.
But it was an amazing moment, an overhead kick, a bicycle kick.
Exactly. He writes he writes the story.
I think every game Jude Bellingham and he's still 21, which is incredible.
You know, he shut the mouth of critics who said English player can't be successful abroad.
And he was successful at in Germany.
Now he's successful in Spain. He won Champions League.
He won the league. He scored 19 goals in Spain in his first season, only in the league.
And he was superstar in Champions League as well.
And what I like about him when when he has the chance to talk to the media, there's every time something something specific and sponsor something very hard to say self confidence, maybe, you know, and it makes sense when he stalks, you know, like exactly.
He presents good arguments because let's be honest, a lot of players.
I mean, I would probably not be any better because it's it's a tense moment when you have to speak to you guys, to the media.
But but you know what I mean? It's a tense moment.
A lot of emotions in the game.
And now they are asking you all these questions.
Usually most of the players, they will just stick with some cliches.
Right. Let's be honest. But he's not like that.
You're completely right. He seems to be sort of above all it.
I don't know how he does that.
Exactly. Exactly. 21.
He has a brother in England and I think he's very good as well.
So many so many clubs now is circling around him.
So I think he maybe should or could go to Tottenham.
We will see. So I'm interested if he's the same, you know, by by character and by how he speaks because yeah, he's special.
Billingham is so special.
Well, there is a dark side to him, though.
We have to mention that Martin, we cannot we cannot we cannot escape something weird happened, which I think most people did not notice.
But then it came out on social media the next day.
He was shown sort of making some kind of obscene gesture, I mean, touching balls or something.
And it seemed to be in front of the Slovakian.
What's the what's the name for it?
Bench or something like that. Yeah.
Dug out. Yeah. So and now he's sort of saying, oh, no, it was just it was a joke for my friends who were in the stands.
How do you see that? What do you make of this?
Well, I was talking about it with Pavel Horvat, who also knows Spain football culture.
And he said that in Spain, this gesture is quite normal.
But the public also said that it really doesn't mean some kind of positive things to his friends.
So I think he has very good media team because I think ten minutes after he did that, there was on social media some post which we said, I'm sorry, it was only you know, I was waving to my friends, blah, blah, blah.
So it's you know, it's it's up to everyone if they want to see negative fix of Jude Billingham.
You know, so many emotions, but I think this is not this is not necessary.
And the other thing is that sometimes he a little bit kicks to journalists.
Sometimes I have this feeling it was against this game as well that he said that he doesn't understand critics of the English team because they are through of the group, blah, blah, blah.
But, you know, it's nothing special so far from them for games in this court.
I don't know how many for girls, I think. So nothing special.
Well, I think they scored more goals than France, to be honest, because the French team they they only scored scored.
Well, actually, they didn't score any goals in open play.
They were their own goals and one goal from a penalty scored by by Mbappe.
So, I mean, England are definitely not the only ones that are underperforming at the Euro so far.
But we could say this is a mark of a great team sometimes.
Right. They are not playing well, but they get it done. Harry Kane scored the winner, as you said, Ivan Tony.
Ivan Tony made an assist, I believe. So is this what sometimes needs to happen for a champion to be produced?
Yeah, I think definitely. You know, if they won the tournament, then everyone after one or two years, they will forget how they played in the group.
And actually, no one will care.
And they are very, very lucky, I think, right now at this moment that they are at the at the better part of the of the knockout stage
because they go to Switzerland right now.
And if they won against Switzerland, they will probably go to Turkey or in the Netherlands.
I think that's that's that's my guess.
So, you know, it's still it's still they should they should win all of those games. So we will see.
They have a better side of the draw. But that was my next question.
Do you think do you think they actually stand a chance against Switzerland?
Because the way it looks now, I'll be honest with you, Martin, my money is on Switzerland at the moment.
I totally understand you. How much will you will you bet?
Ask the English teachers. We don't bet so much.
Don't worry. Probably no more than 50 50 Czech crowns, which is about two euros.
OK, fine. Fine. Now I have to say I love Switzerland.
Well, at the tournament, they have the balls, they have courage, they have energy, they support each other, which is quite important.
They got Graničak, who I admire secretly because I didn't like him five or six years ago.
But right now he's so mature and, you know, so intelligent and his leader.
And he won almost everything with Bialyavkustin this season.
And he was superstar two years ago at Arsenal as well.
So, yeah, it will be tough. It will be special for Shaka this game against England because he has so many friends in the team, especially Bukai Osaka Shaka versus Saka.
It's cool. So so yeah, we will see. I think it's 50 50 right now, even though England has to win it,
because if they didn't, then it will be a huge fuck up. I think. Sorry.
Yeah, we will be bit out. Don't worry. Actually, we won't because we don't have it.
We don't have that option on this podcast. So it's fine. It's fine.
Yeah, actually, going back to Graničak, I was actually lucky because before Covid, I was living and working in the UK and my boss gave me a ticket.
It was a Christmas present. She gave me a ticket for an Arsenal game because I support Arsenal.
And I went to the game and it was that game where Graničak was substituted.
It was against Crystal Palace. He was substituted and he threw the captain's armband on the ground and the whole stadium booed him.
And he was like the biggest villain. I think I can't remember exactly, but I believe that the armband was then taken off him by the correct me.
There was and it looked like he was done at that moment. But from that moment, he started playing better.
Like, OK, a few years later, let's say suddenly there is this resurrection and resurgence of Arsenal.
And then then he left, right? Then he left and went to Bayern Leverkusen.
And he just lost only one game in the entire season and won the title.
He won the double with Bayern Leverkusen.
Yeah, he played every minute, I think. So he's a leader as well in Germany right now.
So him and his agent, they did a great choice that he came to Germany.
And I think he will play a very big part at this game against England as well.
I think it's on Friday or on Saturday, right?
Something like that, yeah. Probably Saturday or Sunday.
OK.
Yeah. Well, Martin, any other standout moments for you in the round of 16?
Have you seen any other matches as of recording now? Six out of eight games have been played.
Yeah, I have to say I lost pain at this tournament and I'm quite happy that I don't know the players quite well,
because during the Premier League season I don't have time to watch other leagues, honestly.
So I'm amazed by Amal, I'm amazed by Williams.
And the team is very mixed, perfectly mixed, I would say, perfectly balanced.
You've got Morata, an experienced player.
Then you've got Rodri. I think Rodri for me is the best player in the world right now.
If I was a coach and the management would come to me and ask me, would you want to come to your team?
I would say Rodri, definitely.
I'm not sure Pep would agree with Pep Guardiola, he would like that.
No, he definitely wouldn't, because I think Pep realised that he's so important for Man City.
And he's so important for Spain's national team.
You could see that against Georgia, because he was the one who scored the equaliser.
And then it was easy for Spain, because Georgia was so optimistic in this game as well.
They scored even though they were under pressure since the first minute.
But when I was watching the game I was like, why are Czech national teams not playing like Georgia?
They have the balls. They don't have big names, but they want to play football.
It's so ironic that our best game was against Georgia.
The Czech team played so well against Georgia.
They were under the coach for the whole game, Georgia, except for that last chance.
We had the game under control, so many chances.
We had the most chances of any game and didn't win.
It was some kind of a record, we broke a record or something.
But their goalkeeper, Mamar Deshvili, is so good.
He was so good, unfortunately, against Czech Republic.
Even though I think when you have 10 or 15 shots you have to score at least once or twice.
They didn't. It's the question of quality.
Let me ask you one last question.
I'm just very curious as to what you think about Cristiano Ronaldo.
Yesterday he played an incredible game.
He will never forget this game and I think all his supporters will never forget this game.
He missed a penalty. I think he was a passenger in that game.
He was taking all free kicks.
He wouldn't let anyone else to take any of the free kicks as usual.
Then he took a penalty, he missed it.
It was actually a brilliant save by Oblak.
Then he started crying as well. It was quite unusual.
You don't see this very often during a game.
You may see it when a player gets injured, when it's a really serious injury.
The player starts crying or after a game, after a lost game.
But you don't see it. He looked completely destroyed by that.
Then he takes another penalty in the shootout and Portugal are through.
What do you make of that?
Zdeněk is the winner. That's the main problem.
I saw so many documents. I read books about Cristiano Ronaldo.
I respect him even more than Messi because I think Messi has got a talent.
But Ronaldo had to train to get on this very top level.
He's 39 and he's still in very good shape because he knows every piece of his body.
He knows how to protect his body. He knows what to do to be still on this top level.
He's a little bit unfortunate. Of course we can say he's selfish.
That's quite interesting. He had 58 free kicks during his season on the national level at the major tournament.
He only 13 times hit the target and only once he scored.
So that's very bad numbers. We have to be honest.
Plus you've got Bruno Fernandes in the team, you've got Cancio, you've got Bernardo Silva.
They all have great technique so they could all do the free kicks.
But I think they don't even have the courage to ask Cristiano because he's the main idol.
When he trusts in himself, which he does in every moment, then they don't have a chance.
I was surprised as well that he cried during the half time of extra time.
That's quite unusual. But I wasn't surprised that he was the first guy who said I'm going for a penalty again and I will score.
He's a superstar again for me.
I heard some people on a podcast saying that he's a narcissist, as you said, selfish.
This is the question. Sometimes if you want to make it to the top, you have to be a little bit like that, I suppose.
There are different paths to success, I guess.
But this is definitely one of them and he's very good at it. That's for sure.
That's for sure. Yeah, I agree.
Well, Martin, I don't want to take any more of your time.
Thank you very much for featuring on the Footgris podcast today and thank you for all your footballing insights and expertise.
Thank you very much, Zdenek. It was a pleasure and take care. Good luck with everything.
You too. Bye bye.
Thank you. Bye.
Welcome back to the show. As always, this is the Language Corner.
And in this part of the show, I'm going to teach you something because I have to do my job, right?
I'm an English teacher after all. So let's go.
And today I'd like to focus on pronunciation.
I'd like to talk about something that is not talked about often enough amongst English teachers.
And that is the schwa sound.
The schwa sound. Have you heard what the schwa sound is?
Do you know which sound it is?
It is actually the uh sound. The uh sound.
The most neutral vowel sound in the English language.
And it is, believe it or not, the most common sound in the English language.
And a lot of people don't pronounce it where they should pronounce it or pronounce a different vowel instead of this sound.
Now I'm going to give you a few examples of this sound.
All these examples have the schwa sound at the beginning of words in the first syllable.
Okay? So Martin was talking about Ivan Schranz and Slavia fans.
And he said, they are surprised that he was so good.
Surprised. Surprised has the schwa sound in the first syllable.
Surprised.
Now you have to remember something about the schwa sound, ladies and gentlemen.
It is never ever stressed in the English language.
Especially when it's at the beginning of a word.
This basically means that the following syllable is stressed instead.
So you don't say surprised or something like that. You should say surprised.
Surprised. Stress means that the syllable is louder, stronger, more prominent.
And the unstressed syllable on the other hand, that would be the s.
The one that contains the schwa sound is weaker, sounds weaker.
So it should be surprised. Okay?
Another example.
Martin was talking about Slovakians and he said, it was a very sad moment when they conceded.
To concede. Concede. Again.
There is a schwa sound.
Concede. And that means that this syllable isn't stressed.
The following syllable, seed. The seed syllable is stressed instead.
Okay? Another example.
Next day I was reading the media and there were some critiques about the performance of Slovakians in the second half.
Okay? So here we have the word performance.
Again, the first syllable has the schwa sound. So it is not stressed.
We cannot say performance. We have to say performance. Performance. Okay?
Right. Then Foden was fantastic. Yeah?
Fantastic. Okay?
And then they've got Granichaka, who I secretly admire.
Admire. Right? Admire. Another one.
And the last example is when Martin was talking about Jude Bellingham and he said, he was successful in Germany.
Successful. Not successful, but successful. Yeah?
The first syllable has the schwa sound. That's why it's not stressed.
Well, I hope this is useful. I hope this can help you with your pronunciation.
That is the idea anyway. That is the idea of this podcast.
We talk about football, but we also try to learn something here. Okay?
And the last thing I need to do is to ask you if you could leave a review.
If you do like this podcast, why don't you write a review on Apple Podcasts or give me five stars on Spotify
or wherever you can do that. It would really help me out a lot.
Okay, guys. Thank you very much for listening to this episode and I'll speak to you soon.
Take care. Bye bye.