You're listening to the Footglitch Podcast.
Love football, learn English.
Arsenal defeated Nottingham Forest, but can they actually catch up to Liverpool?
Has Pep Guardiola ever lost five games in a row as a football manager?
Is Victoria Plesey a better team than FC Barcelona?
And what do the adjectives unparalleled and unprecedented mean?
Hello football fans, welcome to another episode of the Footglitch Podcast.
Yes, that's right, the Footglitch Podcast is back and Nrup is back as well.
We don't need to explain who Nrup is, but let's explain what the Footglitch Podcast is, right?
Just in case some people don't know it.
It is a light-hearted podcast about football, which is often full of biased opinions.
But the thing is, the main is to help English learners who love football.
These could be football fans, football players, football managers, football referees, anyone who needs to improve their English through football.
Nrup, welcome back to the podcast.
Thank you, thank you Zdenek. Hello everyone.
It's been a while. I just don't know when was the last time I was on the Footglitch Podcast, but I feel different.
At some point I feel like, OK, what were the rules of the Footglitch Podcast?
But then at the end of the day, you just have to be yourself and go with the flow.
We just talked about football. I'm going to ask you about Arsenal, of course, because that's the team you and I support.
We're going to talk about the Premier League mainly.
We should also point out, we should mention that we've got another show that we often do together.
I mean, you only missed once. You have only one absence, to use the school kind of terminology, right?
You only have one absence.
This show is called Heroes of the Week. Do you want to tell our listeners what we do in the Heroes of the Week YouTube show?
Sure, I can give my shot. So the thing is, Heroes of the Week is more about interaction with other fans and other people,
along with our opinions, where we provide, where we have segments, where we provide Heroes of the Week,
take away of the week and other segments, which you will know once you check it out.
So I won't provide all the details, but I won't spoil it.
But it's more interactive and it is a rather shorter format of a podcast.
It's live. It's nice.
We do it live. And it used to be every Sunday, I think at 8.30 or something like that.
But now we are changing the time and the day.
Now we want to do it a bit earlier, I think, at about 6 p.m. Central European time and on Mondays, right?
On Mondays.
So let's see if this change is any good.
It's a pilot idea, but let's see.
All right. So this is just a quick mention of our other show that we do together with Noob.
But this is the Footgrish podcast. It's a different kind of thing.
Here we just talk about a topic, a football topic.
So I think let's talk about Arsenal, the Premier League. Maybe we can mention some other matches as well.
So what did you make of the Arsenal result?
I'm pretty happy, actually.
It's been a while since Arsenal were this dominant. Arsenal were this clinical.
We're really happy. 3-0.
I mean, I expected much more considering how the game went.
But I guess I'll be humble and satisfied.
Yeah. So the opponent was, was it Leicester City?
No, it was a team that is called Nottingham Forest.
Nottingham Forest.
Yeah. And, you know, it's a, if you look at the current table, they were at one point among the top four teams.
Right.
And they were doing pretty well. They had one of the solid.
I think they had one of the best defenses in the league as well at one point.
And they were doing pretty well. They had a good run.
So, yeah, like if you look at the scenario, if you look at the rematch situation, I think, I think, of course,
Arsenal were the favorites because the game was in the MNF Stadium, but still looking at Arsenal's form.
In recent form, what hasn't been very good, right? Prior to this game, a lot of games.
We had like, we had like just one win in five games.
So it says a lot to our form, whereas Nottingham Forest.
I'm sorry. I wanted to say it's almost as bad as Manchester City, right?
Well, I'll stay humble in that case. But anyway, whereas Nottingham Forest, they had three wins in five games.
So, you know, that's a huge difference.
And if you look at in this situation, we did not look the best in terms of preparation and, you know,
the pool of players that we had, considering we lost Ben White and, you know, we did not have the right amount of forwards.
And, you know, I don't think our team looked that sharp.
But we need to mention one name, Nrup, and that's Martin Odegaard, because he's back, isn't he?
Our captain, our Martin Odegaard from Real Madrid, 35 million pound player.
He has been fantastic for Arsenal and we met big time, big time.
How long was he out for?
I would say at least two months.
Like, you know, because he got injured two international duties ago.
It was something with Ankle and, yeah, I mean, we missed him.
Initially, I thought, like, we'll manage without him, you know, like we have a good team, but our players are fine.
Like, you know, it's a similar profile player, if you look at it, like attacking midfield, we have enough of them.
But then, I mean, if you look at something else, something else, his energy, his drive, his creativity,
his thinking, his decision making and his ability to press, in my opinion, is unparalleled.
His work rate is incredible.
And one more thing, I've been thinking about this and I can see some kind of a parallel with Rodri.
Yeah. So we missed. Yeah.
Because Rodri got injured for Manchester City.
Look where they are now, what kind of mess they are.
And he managed to win the Ballon d'Or in the meantime, but that wasn't obviously something that wasn't for the last few months.
That was for the previous year.
But the point is we miss Martin Odegaard, they miss Rodri.
Rodri's injury is more serious.
We are lucky that Martin Odegaard recovered from his injury.
And I think that could be the difference.
However, there's one big problem and it's called Liverpool.
I mean, I still don't see them as a problem yet because last season we were in a similar situation and it was them who bottled it.
And I expect the same to happen.
I mean, winter is here.
And it's always in such situations we rise from such, let's say, such occasions or such crisis period.
So, yeah, I mean, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm still calm.
We're still in the top four.
But there is a gap. There is a gap.
Because they have 31 points. Manchester City have 23.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Brighton have 22.
It's fine. It's nine points. It's a lot.
Yeah. But but I think if you look at their fixtures, Liverpool had much, much, much more easier fixtures than us.
And now Liverpool will be having some challenging fixtures.
So, yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to them being thrashed by City twice.
Once by us and perhaps more times by other teams.
I would love to have them also have the same form as City that is having right now five losses in a row.
So, yeah, looking forward to that.
That's unprecedented. That has never happened to Pep Guardiola ever before as a manager.
Like he has never experienced this.
So this is so unbelievable, actually, especially considering he is just he's just signed.
I think it was last week he signed a new contract, a two year extension, which is understandable.
Even if he loses this season completely, even if he gets out of the Europa League spot or conference league spot, he will still be the manager.
Of course, his position is just such that he cannot be fired, in my opinion, for what he has done in Manchester City.
Yeah, I mean, even in the previous in the previous clubs that he managed was Neymar's Act.
He fulfilled his contract and then he left according to his terms.
As much as I love what City is going through, I feel sad for Pep Guardiola because I admire him.
He's one of my he's probably my favourite modern day manager.
And yeah, I understand because you also support Barcelona, so you obviously there's a connection there as well.
And also I like his style of football and considering Arteta has been inspired by him.
So there is some sort of relation to him.
Yeah, that's true. Also rivalry these days.
But this will be interesting to see how the season unfolds, obviously, with Liverpool nine points ahead now.
And then we have a team like Chelsea under Marisca.
Oh, my God, they are a real menace now, I think they are.
But we have been annoying.
But I mean, Cole Palmer has been lukewarm, as many people say.
True. But the team works as a unit.
The team works as a unit. That's the most important thing.
True, true. I agree with that.
But it's but it's just that I believe they're not they're not ready for the title.
I don't even think they're ready for top four. But OK, let's see.
The season is still early. We're not even halfway through.
And many things can happen. Many things can happen.
True. Yeah, I think realistically, it's going to be a game between those three teams.
That is us, Manchester City and Liverpool.
But who knows, even if there are some other teams that are there and they're about like Brighton, for example, who would have thought?
Because, I mean, if you look at it last year, at this point, we had Tottenham and Aspen Villa instead of instead of Chelsea and Liverpool.
You know, they were like Liverpool were like the first time, like fifth or sixth position if I'm not wrong.
And yeah, you know, things can change. Yeah, I agree.
I agree. But I wouldn't write of Tottenham either.
I know they are just such a weird team because they lost they lost against Crystal Palace and also Ipswich, who hadn't won a single game when when this happened.
And they beat Tottenham. And then this week, this weekend, they beat they defeated Manchester City four nil away from home at the Emirates.
I mean, that was unbelievable as well. Did you watch that game or did you follow it?
You follow it? I did follow it. I did not watch the game.
But yeah, I mean, this time the league has been much more tighter.
I mean, think of it, the points that there is only three point difference between the third, third ranked team and the ninth ranked team or eighth ranked team if I'm not wrong.
Something like that. Yeah.
So like, you know, how many five, five or six teams are sharing three points.
It's very tight. Actually, actually, if you look at it, the second place,
Manchester City and Brentford in the 11th place is only five points behind.
Wow. So it's kind of Brentford and Brentford is more informed than City.
Well, to be honest, every single Premier League team, if you look at the last three games, is more informed than Manchester City.
I would say last five games. But yeah, if you look at last five games, I think there is one team which is worse.
Maybe more, maybe two. I think Southampton only have three points. Yeah.
It's terrible. It's really interesting this season. I have to say it's fun to watch.
There are some hiccups, blips and stuff like that. We're just waiting for Liverpool.
Lots of injuries as well. But yeah. Yeah. Well, it's football for you.
Anything else? Any other results that stand out for you this weekend or anything else?
You can also talk about other other leagues if you want. Why not?
Well, if you want to talk about other leagues, then I will have to talk about La Liga, which I've been following from Barcelona.
And that is Barcelona dropped points again.
And Barcelona were like, I don't know, 10, 15 points ahead of Madrid, the current defending champions and the usual favourites.
And they were doing pretty well. They had a fantastic season.
Arguably, they have arguably the best player in top five leagues, which is Ruffinia, in my opinion.
It's just my opinion. And they just last two games or three games probably. They just bottled it.
And Nrub, I also have to remind you that Victoria Pilsen, the Czech team, you know, the team where they brew the Czech beer Pilsen.
You know that one, Pilsen. You like that beer, right?
It's OK. But yeah, well, whatever. I should prefer only to tell all of that. But OK.
Nrub prefers a different beer. Anyway, it's a famous beer from that city.
Yeah. In Europa League, they beat. Oh my God. They also see it out, right?
Yeah. The team where Michael Marino and Michael Artena came from and Martin Odegaard.
And I'm mentioning it because it was Barcelona who lost to this team.
Right. They were robbed. But yeah, it doesn't matter.
You lost. You lost. Pilsen is technically better than Barcelona.
That is my conclusion. I draw from that.
That's football for you. The devil's game. But yeah.
I'm just joking. I'm just joking. You know that.
That's what we do here as well on the Footglish podcast.
You know, it's as I said at the beginning of the podcast, this is quite a lighthearted podcast where everything kind of goes, you know.
So, yeah, I mean, in terms of La Liga, I mean, Barcelona hasn't had a good form.
And because of that, because of those silly results, it has made the La Liga table also much more challenging.
And I don't think Barcelona would like to keep a more comfortable position, more dominant position compared to other teams because, you know, Madrid,
Madrid towards the end of the season, they are a different monster and they always catch up no matter where you are.
So you would rather keep lots of distance.
So you think you can make it this season? You can win La Liga?
I think so. I think we can even win Champions League if we have all the players because Barcelona is also having lots of injuries.
And there are some here in the crisis, but on a fully fit.
I think Barcelona, they have been so far arguably the top three best teams in Europe.
OK. And yeah. OK, great.
Getting back to Premier League, some interesting results regarding this week's matchday would be Wolves versus Fulham.
And I'm surprised.
You know, I really expect a lot from Fulham because they have our ex Arsenal players.
And I just had some basic expectations from them.
And they were thrashed. They were thrashed.
I think I think it's called the first goal and then they were just thrashed for one.
You know, I picked Wolves as my team of the week.
Spoiler alert. I did. I did. I did watch your video.
Oh, you did. OK. Yeah, I did. I did.
I have I have one more subscriber. I have one more follower.
Which is the videos.
Yeah, I mean, I was surprised that you chose Wolves. I was expecting Arsenal or some other team.
That's too easy. It's too easy. I know.
But yeah, Wolves, I'm surprised. I don't know what's going on with them.
Like, do they like do they have a new manager? How is he?
How long has he been with them?
Because I remember they recently sacked some manager, their old manager, some British.
OK, I can't I can't I can't remember.
But I guess that's it, because I have to go for a run now.
So thank you. It's been it's been enough for today.
Thank you so much. And if you guys want to hear more of Muroop,
make sure that you watch our live show on Monday at six p.m.
Central European Time on the Teachers Then If YouTube channel.
See you on life. Interact with us. Write down your heroes of the week and other.
Exactly. Possible questions.
It's different from the Footgrish podcast, because there you can actually be part of the show,
because we can read out your comments as well.
So yes, enjoy your night run and nice.
It is two a.m. So I will be alone in the park, but I like it.
Well, I don't know how to call. How do you call Batman and Vietnamese?
But I guess you are that. Thanks. Thanks for that.
Nice one. You take care, mate. Yeah, you too.
Cheers, mate. Cheers. Bye bye.
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the language corner.
As always, in this part of the show, I'm going to have a look at some bits of the English language.
At the same time, I've got four adjectives for you, which I think can be quite useful to learn.
And of course, as always, these adjectives appeared in the interview.
So there is a context. You always need a context when you are learning new vocabulary.
Please don't learn new vocabulary from apps like what's the name of that app?
The most famous app that everybody uses. I can't remember the name now.
Basically, it's like a list of random words, which are often unrelated, maybe only related by, let's say, a topic.
But that's not enough. You need it inside a text, inside a listening, right?
Like a piece of text or some kind of speech. That's just way more powerful, way more memorable.
You can work out the meaning from context. That's how you should learn.
This is actually a piece of knowledge that I acquired at the university and then later at the teaching courses like CELTA and Delta.
So believe me when I say that this is how you should learn words. It's true.
OK, so yeah, before I get into that, I should also apologize for the sound in the actual dialogue that I had with Nrub.
As we say, shit happens. OK, but now I think you're all waiting for that vocabulary.
So let's go. Here we go. I don't think our team looked that sharp.
So Nrub was describing the Arsenal performance against Nottingham Forest and he said that our team didn't look that sharp.
It's like if you say that sharp, it's almost like so sharp, almost the same as so sharp.
But what does sharp mean? Well, you know, a knife can be sharp. If a knife is sharp, it cuts very well.
If it's not sharp, we say it's blunt and you can struggle to cut with that knife. Right.
But the word sharp is also used to describe someone's performance.
If your team's performance is not sharp, it means that you are not performing well. You're not effective.
Right. Your performance is not effective. You're not playing with enough precision, enough energy, enough cohesion.
You just don't have enough of these attributes in order to succeed in the game. Right.
Well, even though Nrub thought that we didn't look sharp, we still managed to win this game. 3-0, I believe it was. Right. I think so.
Right. Next, Odegaard. We were talking about Martin Odegaard and I said that his ability to press,
and I was speaking about his energy and I was praising this player for a lot of different aspects or attributes.
And I said that all this, it's unparalleled. I said his ability to press is unparalleled.
So that's an interesting word. Yeah. If your ability to do something is unparalleled, then you don't have an equal.
Yeah. No one is as good as you. Right. You're the best. Okay. For example, often we use it to talk about a product.
Let's say, I don't know, Adidas. I honestly don't understand these brands. I don't really buy designer clothes,
but I suppose Adidas is quite famous. Right. So we could say Adidas' products are unparalleled or the quality of the products is unparalleled.
It means that every other brand is worse or the quality of their products is worse. I don't know if this is true.
Probably isn't. But as an example, that should suffice. That should be enough. Okay. Moving on.
Now Liverpool have some challenging fixtures. Right. So Noob was talking about the fact that yes, Liverpool did really well at the start of the season.
Now they are eight points clear at the top of the table before the second team, which is Manchester City.
But there is a caveat. Right. There's a little sort of but Liverpool hasn't had any difficult fixtures yet.
And the fixtures are about to get much worse, much more difficult.
If you say that Liverpool have some challenging fixtures, you could say coming up, then the word challenging there means difficult.
A challenging game is a difficult game for you. A challenging opponent, a challenging situation.
Anything that is challenging is difficult. It's a challenge.
It will be a real challenge to deal with this or to overcome this or to succeed.
Okay. So challenging, similar to the word difficult. Okay. And here is the last one.
I said that's unprecedented. And I was referring to the fact that Pep Guardiola had lost five games in a row.
And I said that has never happened before. And that's exactly what the adjective unprecedented means.
Right. If something is unprecedented, it has never happened before. There is no precedence for it.
If there is no precedence for it, it means that nothing that is similar to that, that just happened, preceded what just happened in the past.
Right. So it's all these words come from the same word family. Precede, precedent and unprecedented is the adjective.
If something is unprecedented, it has never happened before. Okay. So yeah, I guess that will be it.
Okay. And before I end this episode of the Footgrish podcast, let me also add that one day later after we recorded this with Nrup,
West Ham United beat Newcastle United away from home 2-0 in an amazing game for the Hammers.
They did really well. It was an excellent performance from them. And guess who scored the first goal?
Of course, it was none other than Tomáš Socek, a well-placed header from the corner kick.
It was the first corner kick goal from West Ham this season. The team that used to dominate at this is now struggling a bit,
but finally they scored through Tomáš Socek. And obviously we all like to see Tomáš Socek score goals for West Ham, don't we?
Well, I do for sure because he's my countryman. That's right. And yeah, so that's all that I will manage to squeeze into this episode.
Don't forget that you can support the Footgrish podcast if you really like it.
Then you can go to my hero hero page. You can find the link in the description of this episode and you can support me.
Thank you very much. If you decide to do that, I will be grateful to you forever because to be honest,
it's still a relatively young podcast and it's still early days for this podcast.
So it will need to grow the following in order for this podcast to stand any chance in the future.
I hope it will happen one day. It just will take some time.
OK, guys, thank you very much. I'll speak to you soon. Take care. Bye bye.