This Week: Fantasy Premier League

Hello, my name’s Jack and welcome to the weekly round-up called This Week on Premier Skills English.

In This Week, we’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

If you are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify you can also visit the Premier Skills English website at premierskillsenglish.britishcouncil.org where you’ll be able to download the podcast.

On the Premier Skills English website, you can read the transcript and join the Premier Skills English community by completing a language task in the comments section. This will really help you remember the new words and phrases from the stories from the Premier League.

This week, the league kicks off, but I still don’t have any football to talk about so I’m going to focus on Fantasy Premier League which is a fantasy football game that you can play on the premier League website.

The vocabulary that I want you to think about in this podcast is:

• To perform
• Squad
• Budget
• On the bench
• Transfer
• Bonus
• To determine
• Hospitality
• Bundle

Listen out for this vocabulary in this week’s podcast.

Before I get to the Fantasy football focus, I want to look at last week’s football phrase. If you didn’t hear it last week, here’s one more chance to guess now.

The football phrase last week was the ********* ******. This is the name of the match that is held before the start of the season between the League champions and the winners of the FA Cup. This is a special match that is usually played at wembley stadium and the proceeds, that is the money that is collected from ticket sales is given to local charities. The prize is a silver replica of an object that a mediaeval knight might have carried to defend themselves.

Last week’s fiendish football phrase was really tough. The phrase was a *******-******. I chose this phrase because the football phrase was described as a *******-****** in an article on the Premier League website. Generally, this phrase is used to describe an event that happens before something larger or more important that acts like an introduction to the more important event or series of events.

So ... this week’s ********* ****** is a *******-****** for the Premier League.

I thought that these phrases were going to be a real challenge for you but lots of you got them right.

Congratulations to Alex from Ukraine, Gapa from Korea, AndreTorre from Brazil, Lukáš from Czechia, Hasan from Turkey, MoBeckham from Turkey, Denis2000 from Belarus and LeoFabiano from Brazil.

You all managed to work out that the football phrase was Community Shield and the fiendish football phrase was curtain-raiser. Keep listening till the end of the podcast for two new football phrases.

Now it’s time for this week’s story which is a special focus on Fantasy Premier League.

What is Fantasy Premier League?

Fantasy Premier League is a game you can play on the Premier League website. With over 11 million players, Fantasy Premier League is the biggest Fantasy Football game in the world. In Fantasy Premier League, you get to manage your own Premier League team and each week, your players score points based on how they perform in the real Premier League.

To perform

The verb perform means to do something, usually something difficult. We use the verb in two different ways. I think the most common use is when someone does something to entertain people. So when a singer sings on a stage for people to watch, they are performing. An actor or an acrobat, a magician or a musician, they are all performers and when they do their act, they perform. We also use the noun form performance. The second way that we use the verb is when we talk about how well someone does something. So if someone does their job very well, their boss might say that they performed brilliantly. We also use the verb to talk about how well machines work, how well they perform. Cars that are very fast are sometimes called high performance cars because they perform very well. In Fantasy Premier League, the players you select earn points for how well they do their job on the pitch, for how well they perform.

It’s free to play and you can win some really great prizes! You can compete in different leagues against Fantasy Premier League players all over the world and you can also join local leagues, leagues set up for supporters of a team, for example, the Arsenal supporters league, and even you can even set up private leagues that you can share with your friends. At the bottom of the page for this podcast on the Premier Skills English website, there’s a special code you can use to join the Premier Skills English league.

The first thing you need to do is pick your squad.

Squad

In the Premier League, each club has a squad of up to 25 players. The squad is all the players that have signed for a team. This includes players that are injured or that the manager chooses not to play. The club manager has to pick their team and substitutes from their squad.

When you first sign up for Fantasy Premier League, your first job is to pick your squad. You have a budget of £100 million and you have to pick 15 players.

Budget

The noun budget means the money that a person or organisation has to spend on a project. So if you go to buy a car and talk to a sales person, they might ask you ‘what’s your budget?’ In Fantasy Premier League, you have a budget of £100 million. This is the total amount of money that you can spend on players.

You have to pick two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three forwards. There’s a list of all the players from the Premier League and you can filter by position so when you’re picking your goalkeepers, you only have to look at the goalkeepers and so on. For example, for my squad, I picked Emilio Martinez and Jose Sa. Once you have picked your squad, you have to pick your captain and select your team. Now, when I looked at my team page, my best players had already been selected and my four weakest players were on the bench.

On the bench

A bench is a long seat, usually made out of wood, that more than one person can sit on. You normally find benches in parks or along footpaths. When the weather's nice in London, at lunchtime, the benches in the parks will be full of people having their lunch. In the past, substitutes and other players that were not on the pitch would sit on a wooden bench at the side of the pitch. These days, the benches have been replaced in the Premier League by really comfortable looking chairs, but we still say that players who are not playing are on the bench.

Making transfers

Each week, you are allowed to make transfers.

Transfer

The verb to transfer means to move something from one place to another. It’s commonly used to talk about people when they change their job, but still work for the same company so when they move from one department to another. When players move from one club to a new club, I think, most commonly, we use the verb move or just say that they have signed for a new club, but we do use the noun form, transfer, to describe the move. The time periods in the summer and winter that clubs can buy and sell players are called transfer windows and in Fantasy Premier League, when you buy and sell players through the season, each exchange is a transfer.

Transfers are how you can change your players. You might want to do this if one of your players is injured or if you just want to exchange them for someone who is playing better. To make a transfer, you have to sell one of your players and then you can use the money to buy a new player. You are allowed to make one free transfer for each gameweek. If you don’t make a transfer, you can save your free transfer and make two free transfers the following week. In fact, you can keep saving your free transfers for up to five weeks. That’s the maximum number of free transfers you can save up. If you really want to make a transfer and you don’t have any free transfers left, you can buy a transfer for four Fantasy Premier League points so you want to avoid that if you can.

How do you score points?

Your players earn points in different ways. So all players earn one point for playing at all. If a player is on the pitch for more than 60 minutes, they earn two points. Players also earn points for scoring goals and making assists. For example, for each goal, forwards earn four points, midfielders earn five points, defenders earn six points and goalkeepers earn ten points. Goalkeepers and defenders earn points for keeping a clean sheet. Goalkeepers earn one point for saving three shots and five points if they save a penalty. There are also bonus points for earning the player of the match award.

Bonus

A bonus is usually an amount of money that someone receives as a special reward, that’s not part of their regular salary. It’s like a surprise; not something that you are planning for and have added to your budget. In some companies, workers get a bonus at Christmas if they have worked really hard. As well as money, we use the word bonus to describe something that we like, but that we didn’t plan for. So, when I moved into my new house, I didn’t know that there was a really good pizza takeaway around the corner. That was a real bonus.

As well as earning points for playing and scoring goals. players can lose points. All players lose one point if they are shown a yellow card and three points for a red card. If a player misses a penalty, they lose two points and if a player scores an own goal they also lose two points. I think that’s most of the actions that determine whether a player wins or loses points.

To determine

The verb determine is quite advanced. It has three different meanings. The most common is to control something or cause or influence something. So your genes will determine the colour of your eyes. They control what colour your eyes are so they determine the colour for your eyes. We also use the verb to say what someone discovered after an investigation or experiment. So you might read that the police determined the person that committed a crime or a scientist determined the chemical structure of a molecule. The third meaning is to make a strong decision so you could say the boy determined that he would one day play in the Premier League. However, it’s more common to use the adjective form. If you make a strong decision, you can say that you are determined to do something. The boy was determined to play football in the Premier League.

In Fantasy Premier League, the actions that a player performs will control or cause the points that they earn, they determine whether a player wins or loses points.

If you want to see all of the actions and the points that can be scored, there’s a page on the Premier League website and I’ll put a link on the page for this podcast on the Premier Skills English website.

The prizes

I’m really not good at this game. I always think I’m going to do well at the beginning of the season but then ... well, I’ve never really looked at the prizes before. But, for the main competition, there are lots of prizes. The overall winner gets a 7 night stay in the UK and two VIP hospitality tickets to a Premier League match.

Hospitality

In general, hospitality means being friendly and welcoming to guests, making sure they are comfortable and offering them food and drink. We also talk about the hospitality industry which includes all hotels and restaurants and some entertainment. In football, there are special hospitality tickets which include some food and usually some sort of presentation at the stadium before watching a match.

The winner also gets a fancy watch and a laptop and a video game and some headphones and a bundle of Fantasy Premier League goodies including a bag, a t-shirt, a mug and lots more.

Bundle

A bundle is a few things that are wrapped up and held together. If you see a group of things held together by string, then they are a bundle. Some vegetables like asparagus and spring onions are sold in bundles. Another common use of the word bundle describes things that are sold together. The first use I can find when I search for the word online describes software, that is, computer programmes that are sold together. So if you buy or download a programme, there might be other programs in the same package. In the past, it was always anti virus tools that were bundles with everything. If you win the Fantasy Premier League, one of the prizes is a selection of Fantasy Premier League items that are all combined into a bundle.

And there are lots of runner up prizes as well. But as I say, I’ve never come anywhere near the top of the league so for me, the prizes are not my motivation. I just like managing my team and following my players’ performances in all the matches each gameweek.

This is just a very basic overview of the game. There are more details and options that you will discover if you sign up, including special wild cards that you can play on different weeks.

There’s a new game called Fantasy Challenge in which you have to pick a team each week for a weekly challenge that looks good. So check out the Fantasy and Fantasy Challenge pages on the Premier League website.

Today, I’ve spoken about 9 useful words and phrases.

The words and phrases were:

• To perform
• Squad
• Budget
• On the bench
• Transfer
• Bonus
• To determine
• Hospitality
• Bundle

And now, it’s time for you to think about this language again. I have asked AI to come up with examples of sentences with today’s words and phrases and I've edited them slightly. I have removed today’s vocabulary so I want you to fill in the gaps with the correct forms of the language from the podcast.

Number 1. Our __________ for the project is limited, so we need to be resourceful.

Number 2. The company offers a _________ deal where you can save money if you pay for multiple services.

Number 3. The game offered extra levels as a _______ for players who finished quickly.

Number 4. The athlete ________ well in the competition and won a medal.

Number 5. We were touched by the warm __________ we received from our hosts.

Number 6. The coach arranged a ________ for the player to join another football team.

Number 7. The weather will _________ whether the event is held indoors or outdoors.

Number 8. The football ______ trained hard for the upcoming campaign, each member determined to earn a starting spot.

Number 9. After a long walk, they rested on a wooden ________ by the lake.

Leave your answers to this language challenge in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Football phrase

Now it’s time for this week's football phrase.

This week, the phrase is ********. This is a tactic where players put pressure on their opponents when they have the ball so that they make mistakes and the team that is ******* can win the ball back.

The fiendish football phrase is a ***** ****. This is a centre forward that has been given the freedom to drop back into deeper positions to not only develop shots but also to be able to add support with counter-******* when the team is off the ball.

If you know the answer to the football phrase or the fiendish football phrase, be sure to leave it in the comments section at the bottom of the page for this podcast on Premier Skills English.

Before I finish, I am going to go through the answers to last week’s new kit challenge.

Kit number 1: This kit has a pale blue shirt with a navy blue or dark blue collar and cuffs that have a pattern that’s made of the numbers 0161 which is the local area telephone code. The kit has white shorts and navy blue or dark blue socks with a pale blue hoop.

This was, of course, Manchester City’s home kit

Kit number 2: This kit has a black shirt and black shorts and black socks. The shirt has green and red stripes around the collar and over the shoulders and thin strips of printed fabric that looks like a kind of batik, a pattern that’s made using wax. The colours are from the Pan-African flag and are described as a celebration of cultural diversity. I think the shirts will be very popular.

Kit number 2 was Arsenal’s away kit.

Kit number 3: This is another tricky one. This shirt is mostly white but with a small black polo style collar with a teal stripe. The collar has one button. There are black stripes on the shoulders and teal sleeves. There are also thin strips of teal on that run down the lower sides of the shirt.

This was Newcastle United’s third kit.

Kit number 4: You’ll have to listen closely this time. This kit is claret and blue. Claret is a rich dark red. The colour comes from red wine - from a type of red wine called claret. The shirt is mostly claret, but with light blue sleeves. It has a striped crew neck collar and striped cuffs with claret and blue hoops. The shorts are white and the socks are mostly light blue but claret at the top.

This was tricky because the colours could have been a different team, But the hoops on the collar meant that this had to be West Ham United.

Kit number 5: The last kit that I wanted you to work out is bright yellow with navy blue pinstripes. The colour looks like a very loud buttercup yellow but the name on the website is university gold. The shirt has a simple round neck collar with little navy blue triangles that look a bit like the shirt has a collar. The cuffs are navy blue. There is also a strip of white at the sides. The shorts and socks are the same bright yellow colour.

Kit number five was tricky for a few of you. I was describing Brighton and Hove Albions away kit.

And that’s all I have time for today. Before I finish, I just wanted to say that I hope you found this podcast useful, and I hope everyone stays fit and healthy and safe.

Bye for now and enjoy your football.