by Alex Bellos
13. OH MY WORDS!
It’s boring to listen to words that are repeated too often. A wide range of words will ensure that you always have a new one handy. The best way to develop your range, or vocabulary, is to read – and not just Football School! Any book or magazine will give you access to new words, and that’s the best way for your brain to take them on board. One football writer calculated there are 73 different ways to describe how a goal is scored! These include:
Can you think of any more?
Now think of different ways you can describe a header that leads to a goal:
Crashing! Glancing! Towering! Angled! Diving!
As you can tell, we love words around here!
Commentators also use language creatively, for example by using metaphor and simile. A metaphor is a word or phrase that we use to describe something as if it was something else, so that it paints a picture of what’s going on. For example, when we say that the Wembley pitch is a green carpet, we don’t mean that the pitch is an actual carpet! We mean that it is neat, tidy and luxuriant like a brand-new carpet. When we say that the game is on a knife-edge, we do not mean that the game is literally on a knife-edge, we mean that it is dangerously balanced, as if on the thin edge of a knife.
A simile is when we compare one thing with another, using the word “like”or “as”, in order to make the description more vivid. For example, “Alex leaped like a salmon to head it home” or “Ben dribbled past his markers as quickly as an Olympic skier”.
The best commentators use metaphors and similes all the time. Listen hard and see how many you can spot.
14. BE NATURAL
Commentators need to be able to think on the spot. If a good idea comes to you during the game, write it down. Ben’s friend Dave commentated on Greece knocking out France at Euro 2004. Just before the end of the game, he thought of a joke based on the name of France’s former general Napoleon Bonaparte. He used it on the final whistle: “Napoleon Blown Apart! France are out of the competition!” A joke that is a play on words is a pun. At Football School, we love puns!
If you get the giggles or need to cough while commentating, it’s not the end of the world. We all do that too. One TV presenter told us: “When I have a laughing fit, I prefer to go with it and I just hope the viewers join in!” So go ahead … LOL!
CLUELESS COMMENTATORS
Some commentators are remembered for saying silly things. Here are some examples of who said what, and why it was wrong:
TAUTOLOGY
When you say the same thing twice in different words.
CONTRADICTION
When you say two things that are the opposite of each other.
MALAPROPISM
When you use the wrong word in the place of a similar-sounding one.
ENGLISH QUIZ
1. What is tautology?
a) The study of tautology
b) When you say the same thing twice in different words
c) When you tie something up very tight
d) When you misremember a well-known phrase
2. Argentina captain Diego Maradona dribbled from inside his own half to score an outstanding goal in Argentina’s 1986 World Cup quarter-final victory over England. Complete the line from English commentator Barry Davies describing the goal: “And you have to say that is…”
a) Annoying
b) Offside
c) Magnificent
d) Sick
3. What is the correct pronunciation of the first name of Belgium winger Eden Hazard?
a) Ee-den
b) Ee-dayn
c) Ay-den
d) Ay-dayn
4. Complete the following phrase that describes a goal scored confidently: “She finished that chance…”
a) With aplomb
b) With a plum
c) With a plop
d) With a pam-pam
5. How did American commentator Max Bretos describe a Paul Scholes goal scored for Manchester United against Liverpool in 2011?
a) He sang “Gol de Scholes” to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger”.
b) He sang Paul Scholes to the tune of “Happy Birthday”.
c) He sang “God Save Paul Scholes” to the tune of “God Save the Queen”.
d) He sang Paul Scholes to the tune of “Despacito”.
Professional footballers come in all sizes. Some players are short and others are tall. Just like your coaches at Football School! Alex is shorter than Ben, although he grows a little when his hair goes super curly.
This lesson is about height. On the pitch being tall is an advantage in some situations. In others, being short is better. We are going to learn about how our ability to run and dribble changes depending on our feet … and our height!
We will also meet the world-famous footballer who feared he was too small to make it, and the tallest and shortest nationalities in the world. That’s the long and short of it. Now let’s aim high!
THE BOY WHO WOULD NOT GROW
Lionel Messi is one of the world’s greatest ever footballers. Many people think the Argentinean forward is the best player in the history of the game. But when he was younger, Messi had a medical condition and was worried that he might be too short to become a professional player. He also suffered at the hands of bullies who were mean about his height. His story can tell us a lot about the dedication and sacrifice he made at a young age to fulfil his dreams. And of course it shows us that great things can come in small packages!
Messi grew up in Rosário, a city in Argentina. He joined local team Newell’s Old Boys when he was just six years old. His youth team won almost every game they played in. But by the time he was ten, all his teammates were growing taller much faster than he was.
When Messi failed to have a growth spurt, he visited Dr Diego Schwarzstein. The doctor diagnosed that Messi had a rare growth hormone disorder. Hormones are chemicals produced by our bodies that control how our body and emotions work. It turned out that Messi’s pituitary gland, a pea-sized organ in the brain responsible for the balance of hormones, was not sending out the right amount of growth hormone. A lack of this hormone can lead to poor vision and lower immunity – issues that could have prevented Messi from turning professional. The doctor prescribed Messi with a three-year course of treatment.
It was a tough time. “Every night I had to stick a needle into my legs, night after night after night, every day of the week, and this over a period of three years,” he said.
In the middle of his course of treatment, Argentina suffered from a financial crisis and Messi’s family was no longer able to pay for the growth hormones. The treatment was expensive, costing around $1,000 per month. Newell’s could not afford it, and nor could River Plate, another club who were interested in Messi. Only one team was prepared to sign Messi and take on the costs of the treatment for another year. That club was Barcelona. So aged just thirteen, he moved to a new country with his father Jorge.
Messi went on to make Barcelona the greatest team of his generation. He has won more than eight league titles, four Champions Leagues and three Club World Cup titles with Barcelona; and he has won the Ballon D’Or award for the world’s best player five times. If you put all his trophies on top of each other, they would be taller than him!
Messi is now 1.70m (5ft 6ins) and taller than Diego Maradona, Argentina’s former World Cup-winning captain. “I don’t know if you will be better than Maradona, but you will be taller,” Dr Schwarzstein had promised him. At Football School, we believe you should never give up on your dreams – and Messi has definitely reached the very top!
HOW MESSI HIT THE HEIGHTS
Messi, who is one of the best dribblers in the history of the game, is still shorter than the average footballer. His small stature is not unusual for these skills: many of the best dribblers in the game are also short.
Short people make better dribblers than tall people, because short people find it easier to control their balance when running with the ball than tall people. Ta
llies are more likely to topple, but shorties will usually stay up!
To understand why short people can control their balance better, we need to learn about the laws of physics. Physics is the study of how everything moves around the universe. And when we say everything, we mean EVERYTHING. Physicists are interested in the movement of big things like planets, small things like atoms … and medium-sized things like footballers.
A-MASS-ING
Mass is the amount of stuff in an object. The centre of mass, or centre of gravity, of an object is a point usually in the middle of that object. The object balances around this point.
The centre of mass of a human standing up is in the middle of the body, somewhere around the height of the belly button. If the centre of mass is directly above the feet and legs, as it is when we are standing up straight, then we are stable and we will not fall over.
But if the centre of mass is not directly above the legs and feet, such as when we are pushed, we are unstable and we will fall over, unless we move our centre of mass back between our legs and feet. We can return to stability by standing straight again, or by placing our legs further apart.
Now let’s think about what a player is doing when they are dribbling with the ball. The player is constantly darting from side to side, speeding up and then slowing down. The centre of mass is moving all over the place, going from positions that are stable to positions that are unstable and back again.
SHORT AND STEADY
A short player has shorter, lighter limbs and so, in general, will find it easier to control their centre of mass than a tall player. For example, if a short player and a tall player lean forwards at the same angle, all other things being equal, the tall player will actually be leaning further than the short player, because the tall player has a longer body. This means the tall player is more likely to topple and has to use more energy to steady themselves. Small players spend less energy on maintaining stability, which means they can spend more energy on running, speeding up and controlling the ball.
If you look at how a tall player like Cristiano Ronaldo dribbles, you’ll see he uses tiny steps. If he made big steps, he would be wasting lots of energy moving his large, heavy bones around to make sure he is stable. But a much shorter (and lighter) player, like Lionel Messi, dribbles using small steps or big steps – which is one of the reasons Messi is so hard to defend against. You never know which way he will go!
TALL ORDER
We’ve seen how shortness can be an advantage for dribblers. Now let’s look at a position where tall is usually best: wearers of the number 1 shirt. As goalkeepers can use their hands, tall ones can usually reach higher to catch crosses that are intended for strikers.
But it is more than just feet and inches. Scientists have shown that taller people are better at judging distances, so they can more accurately identify the position of the ball. This may be because they are used to looking at the ground from further away.
HEIGHTOMETER
Scientists looked at the height of over 30,000 professional male players from 31 different European countries to calculate the average height of players by position:
LOOKING HIGH AND LOW
Football has a huge variety of heights among its players. Other sports are better suited to tall athletes, while some to smaller athletes.
TAKING THE HIGH ROAD
Tottenham Hotspur’s 9–1 Premier League win over Wigan in 2009 broke goalscoring records and made history for another height-related reason. Peter Crouch, one of the Premier League’s tallest players at 2.01m (6’7”), opened the scoring. Aaron Lennon, who is 1.65m (5’4”), scored the fifth goal for Spurs: the teammates’ height difference of 36 centimetres is the biggest in Premier League history!
HEADS YOU WIN!
Tim Cahill is one of the best headers in the history of football. The Australia midfielder is 1.78m (5’10”) tall, which makes him much shorter than most of the defenders he plays against. “I head a ball like someone else kicks it,” he said. But how? First, he works hard in the gym, building power in his legs to give added spring to launch into the air, and upper body strength to keep defenders at bay. To get to the ball before taller defenders, he has to arrive in the right area at the perfect time. He puts out his arms as an elevation tool to propel him upwards and uses his neck muscles to direct the ball where he wants. He is also fearless when he jumps for the ball and he offers this advice to all future goal-getters: “Believe in your ability and place the ball out of the goalkeeper’s reach.”
ON A NATURAL HIGH
Here is where you will find the tallest, and the shortest, people in the world:
PHYSICS QUIZ
1. What is the name for the point in an object about which it balances?
a) Centre of mass
b) Centre of maths
c) Centre of gravy
d) Balance point
2. Which diminutive Brazilian legend was known affectionately by his fans as “Shorty”?
a) Pelé
b) Ronaldo
c) Romário
d) Ronaldinho
3. The pituitary gland controls our growth hormones but where in the body is it?
a) Under the arm
b) In the brain
c) Back of the throat
d) Heel of the foot
4. A Dutch psychologist who studied the height of football referees discovered which one of these facts?
a) There are more goals with shorter referees.
b) There are more penalties with taller referees.
c) Shorter referees control games better.
d) Taller referees control games better.
5. Kristof Van Hout, a goalkeeper from Belgium, is thought to be the tallest professional footballer in the world. How tall is he?
a) 2.08m (6’10”)
b) 2.11m (6’ 11”)
c) 2.13m (7’0”)
d) 2.16m (7’1”)
Go Lions! Go Elephants! Go Leopards! No, we’re not watching a wildlife documentary. We’re cheering on some of our favourite African teams.
Football is the most popular sport in Africa, a continent made up of 54 countries and with a population of 1.2 billion people. Africans like Mo Salah of Egypt and Victor Moses of Nigeria are among the world’s best players.
The national football teams of many African countries show their love for their continent’s amazing wildlife by giving themselves animal nicknames. For example, Nigeria are known as the Super Eagles, Cameroon are the Indomitable Lions and Ivory Coast are the Elephants.
These animals are powerful symbols. Eagles fly high and swoop fast, lions prowl and devour their prey and elephants are the biggest land animal on the planet. Yet not every country has chosen a well-known animal for their team nickname. The continent is home to thousands of species of mammals, fish and bird, so there are some other amazing animals to choose from.
In this lesson, we’re going to discover some of the more curious animals that are the nicknames for African national teams. Tweet! Bleat! Hiss!
ON THE WING
Country: Uganda
Nickname: The Cranes
Why? The grey crowned crane is the national bird of Uganda, appearing on its flag and coat of arms.
What are they? Cranes are tall birds, standing about a metre high, with long legs and long necks. In fact, the mechanical cranes you see on building sites are named after these birds because of their long necks. There are fifteen species of crane across the world, of which the grey crowned crane is one. Its wingspan is huge – up to 2 metres, as wide as the exceedingly tall footballer Peter Crouch is high. Grey crowned cranes live in grasslands and wetlands in eastern and southern Africa.
Distinguishing features? The grey crowned crane has one of the best haircuts in the animal kingdom: a frizzy gold crown that looks like a bleached-blond crimped perm, not unlike how many footballers used to look in the 1980s.
Animal behaviour: Cranes are famous for their elaborate dance routines, which they use to attrac
t mates. These routines include bobbing their heads, fluttering their wings, twirling, jumping, bowing and running. When humans sing songs near them, cranes get into the groove by nodding their heads.
Clever birds: If a group of cranes are attacked by a predator, sometimes the adult crane will pretend it has an injury by limping in an exaggerated way so that the predator becomes interested in it, rather than the younger and more vulnerable chicks.
Would cranes be any good at football? Their long necks would make them good at heading. And their love of dance means they would have amazing goal celebrations. But they risk getting into trouble with refs for play-acting.
HOOF IT UP
Country: Ethiopia
Nickname: The Walias
Why? The name comes from the walia ibex, which is a rare species of wild goat that only lives in Ethiopia.
What are they? The domestic goat we see on farms is actually only one of eight species of goat found around the world. Five of these goat species are mountain goats called ibexes. The walia ibex is the most endangered ibex species, with only about 500 animals left in the wild. Their population was much larger but they were killed by humans for their meat and fur. They are now only found in a small area of steep and jagged cliffs in Ethiopia’s mountains, about 2,500 metres high, where it is hard for humans to capture them.