football cliches that drive you mad

"The Germans are very clinical and precise on the pitch..."

We can take a lot of positives away, despite the result.

You never hear athletics commentators say an ageing sprinter has an extra yard of pace in his his head, do you?

cliche- jermaine defoe missing a penalty. that's 4 in a row.

― dumb mick name follows (darraghmac), Sunday, 24 January 2010 00:12 (20 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

No wonder he isn't in Capello's 11.

"he shut the door in his face"

It's wrong to mock non-native speakers of English for their mistakes, but the expression "he's in a good moment" (to describe a player on a good run of form) is starting to get on my nerves.

I just worry that it's only a matter of time before it rubs off on the English lads and you get, say, Joe Cole saying Yeah, Didier's in a good moment, ya know.

In a good moment seems to be hugely prevalent among italian native speakers, it must be a direct translation of a phrase?

yeah, and Portuguese (cf Mourinho). As I say, I don't want to sound mean, but I just wish someone would have a quiet word.

kind of thing a professinal translator like mourinho should be marking himself down on tbh.

yes i am aware that the word 'interpreter' exists. gah.

That player x is a 'genius' instead of a 'talent'. How well one came run up and down a field and kick a ball is not realted to brain power but ahtleticism and instinct, so stop fucking calling good players genius. A great manager maybe.

I just worry that it's only a matter of time before it rubs off on the English lads and you get, say, Joe Cole saying Yeah, Didier's in a good moment, ya know.

^ inevitable. Rafa also does a line in 'in this moment' to mean 'at the moment' or alternatively 'now'

xp creative ability?

I don't know if thinking 'oh hai i'm going to overhead kick that' or 'oh hai i bet i can make it past 3 defenders' or 'oh hai if i put that ball over the top to the right, no-one will suspect it' is genius. We all do it on pro evo and alan hansen gets disappointed every week when someone hasn't done these things.

we all do it on pro evo!

David Moyes gets the "moment" habit:

...Moyes said of Sporting Lisbon who have met English opposition six times in European knockout competitions and won through each time. "However, when we played Benfica, they were in a really good moment and I am not sure that Sporting are."

that seems to be a borrowed from native latin speakers talking en ingles, i can remember mourinho using a lot

yeah, but David Moyes is a native speaker of English!

heard this one again recently "well for anyone who says that the fa cup isn't exciting anymore, this game proves blah blah"

but i've never heard anyone say the fa cup isn't exciting anymore, ever.

guess you didn't see the utd-chelsea final a couple years back then

Just did a "find on this page" for the word "passion", and strangely it hasn't been mentioned. Gaah I hate the overuse of that word.

say something other than fucking 'keystone cops moment' for once in yr career, plz pundits

We showed character.
They showed character.
Character.

Just realised that it's also one of those words that just looks wrong when you write it. Character.

character is important: utd - (badge + character) = ?

btw, during the man city game the last night i repeated the 'good feet for a big man' trope so often that my gf, who was trying to read in the corner, lost her temper.

Were you gazing adoringly at her feet at the time? That would explain it.

hmm maybe she's jealous of crouchy. an aspect i hadn't considered tbh.

stonewall penalty

now there's a football saying that's at least three removes away from correct usage of the original term, right?

It does make you wonder how it found its way into football vocabulary.

'He's gone over as if....falling over a low stone wall there Brian?"

On a more topical theme, when Emile Heskey is picked again, we will no doubt be reminded ad nauseam that he 'does things that most people don't notice'.

That one's just gonna get repeatedly clunked against the "I don't care what anyone says, if you're a striker you have to score goals" one until something gives.

One thing that nobody has considered is that Heskey is so good he scores goals that people don't notice.

pedrofuckingmendes.gif

Heskey workin thru a proof of the Riemann Hypothesis in his head while the neanderthals around him insist on kicking a sphere. actually that may be more of a Berbatov.

"It's their cup final" = e.g when Anderlecht, who have actually won a European competition, played Liverpool in the Champions League a few years back

Neil Warnock actually said, about Barrow. "It's their cup final"... just before Barrow were about to play Stevenage in the, errrrrr, FA Trophy Cup Final

Berbatov blatantly thinks about nothing but genocide, look at his eyes.

the way the word FOOTBALL is constantly repeated like we don't know what the moronic game is called

(US version obv)

like we don't know what the moronic game is called

I thought this was true?

yes, that occurred to me

That one's just gonna get repeatedly clunked against the "I don't care what anyone says, if you're a striker you have to score goals" one until something gives.

cliches are often cliches for a reason. I don't think it unreasonable to expect strikers to score goals though 7 goals in 11 years says a shitload of England managers disagree.

Without wishing to reopen the Heskey debate, I think in my post above I was just bemoaning the patronising nature of being told, in effect, "you, the thicko public, just don't see how great he is"

...just before Barrow were about to play Stevenage in the, errrrrr, FA Trophy Cup Final

Would that be the final of the FA Trophy Cup?

Invoking Greek mythology whenever Greece or a Greek team are playing

Yes, Tom, and that old one about Greeks bearing gifts.

World Cup revive, by the way.

They're just happy to be here

This sums it up nicely: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jun/05/world-cup-2010-cliches

The Italians 'revert to type'

Just about everybody connected with English football believes that when push comes to shove Italy always fall back on defensive-minded cynicism. The finest example of this attitude came from Barry Davies after the Azzurri's defeat by South Korea in 2002: "And you have to say they have got what they deserve, because they just will not learn." Italy have won the World Cup four times; England have won it once. This suggests that whatever the Italians have failed to learn was maybe not worth knowing in the first place.

Considered zing