football cliches that drive you mad

Motty following up with the same peanlty cliche about Fabregas ten minutes later

One beloved of lower division/non-League players: describing particularly talented colleagues/opponents as "different class".

One beloved of (at least my) local newspaper reports: managers never just signed a new player, they always "swooped to sign" said player.

One beloved of managers/programme note writers following an unexpected home defeat: "it was a bad day at the office".

Could get a 'poor penalty to be honest' hat-trick in a minute if they bother to do any punditry on the Pompey game. To be fair, that one was a shocker

Kudos to the fivelive commentator who described some harsh Sunderland double-team tackling as creating 'a Zamora sandwich' earlier. First time I've ever heard that the right way round - normally they talk about being 'caught in a Sunderland sandwich', 'tucking into a bread sandwich', etc.

"he had to get there"

"THAT... is a goal worthy of.....*insert superlative**"

My current bugbear is commentators' seeing inside players' heads, e.g. "...and Chelsea are fuming; they believe they should've had a penalty..."

If there's one thing worse than the "biting your hand off" cliche, it's the misuse of that cliche. Surely it's about taking something being offered to you with huge relish. So it sounds well weird when pundits say "if you'd said to us at the beginning of the season we'd be Xth in the table on X points in December, we'd have bitten your hand off". That sounds illogical and frankly barbaric to me.

"he's enjoying himself on the field now"

also bad is the corruption of 'bread and butter' and 'meat and drink'

and the latter's occasional transformation into 'food and drink' what?? next: 'that kind of pass should be fruit and veg for a player of his quality'

that should have been a gin and tonic catch for the keeper and he's made a complete hash of it.

I quite like "food & drink", it conjures the image of the centre backs like lions in a cage, devouring high balls tossed into their enclosure. I've been hearing it used on it's own recently though, and it just sounds weird. Lazy-ass pundits.

using metaphors correctly really ought to be cheese and ham for a sports pundit

Keane still struggling at Ipswich - this will be like prawns in a sandwich for the man

using metaphors correctly really ought to be cheese and ham for a sports pundit

whereas in fact they make a "Chicken Liver Parfait, Oak Moss and Truffle Toast" of the whole thing

should be careful here, this might turn into a roots shoots and leaves affair

"he can't hit it any better than that" when a keeper quite easily saves it/it goes wide/the player just doesn't score. he can hit it better- he can score.

spurs central defenders being a fucking disaster, how's that for a cliché that will send me to an early grave

x-post I dunno, if a player hits the post or something I kind of think "yeah he's done well, unlucky."

like it's just an inch or two away, he's done so little differently from what he would have had to do to score

which reminds me, "just an inch away!" or "only millimetres from scoring!" when the ball whistles past the post = idiocy, once ball clips post it's still got a good 7 or 8 inches' leeway before it's hitting post and going in

yeah but is pretty close...surely a post isn't 7 or 8 inches wide?

yeah but it's kinda like saying 'oh that was close' when you get 5 out of 6 letters needed in a wordsearch.

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

edge of ball clips outside edge of post to centre of ball hitting centre of post is about 4 inches...2 more inches and it's inside of post and out...3 more inches and it's in. at a rough guess.

it's not...missing by 10 feet, missing by a lot, like I said, hitting the post is so close to scoring. putting ball straight at the keeper or something, that's worthy of disdain.

yeah, no i take and agree with your point, i was just arguing that when a ball MISSES the post and a commentator makes out a breath of wind could have taken the ball in, then i am in disagreement. a bit like

"it was in all the way! then it just curled away at the last moment!"

shut up.

"i've seen them given"

"the back of the net...'

Did a quick scan so not sure if it's been mentioned but....

The place every striker tries to put the ball, and every goalkeeper dejectedly retrieves the ball from after he's been scored against, is in fact the FRONT of the net FFS!!!! The BACK of the net is the area BEHIND the net, ie between the net and the perimeter fence!

"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.