Ben's Language Lab

Daily Dose of English 193

Soccer

Daily Dose of English 193

Intermediate

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Hey, everyone. My name is Ben, and you're listening to a Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about soccer. Yes, soccer, not football, because in the US, we call it soccer. And actually, that's not really our fault. The name soccer comes from Britain, actually. When the sport was officially called at some point, association football. Association football was the official name and it sort of got shortened down to soccer from like the association part. And that is a name that stuck in Britain for a while and was brought over to the US. And then in Britain, they kind of went back to just calling it football, right? So association football, but then the US and I think parts of Canada That's just what we call it. That's the normal name for the sport that you kick the ball with your foot. Sure, it's more logical to call it football, but there's plenty of things that we do that aren't logical or names that don't make sense. So that is why it's called soccer. And it is a growing sport and popularity in the US. I'm sure that you've heard or seen that it is not as popular in the US as other parts of the world, which is definitely true. Other countries, it might be the only sport that matters. But in the US, it is one of many popular sports. However, it is growing in popularity, which is what I said a second ago. More people are getting into soccer. It's becoming a bigger sport. But part of that is also just because, well, yeah, one of the sport is getting more popular because it's getting better or it's getting more competitive, but also because It is, there's more options and there's more just eyes on it and there's more soccer essentially, right? A lot of, a lot of people don't particularly care what sport they watch, if it's a, if it's an interesting sport and if there's a history to it and if they can get into it. Many people do have a favorite sport or something that they've grown up with, but that is usually not like the only sport that they ever watch, right? A lot of people that watch American football a ton also love to watch hockey or maybe football as well, sorry, soccer as well, or really any other big sport. Basketball is also very big in the US. And so that's another reason it's growing just because there's more options. And one of those examples is the Women's League is definitely growing in popularity in the US, especially in cities that have a team, right? And where I'm from in Portland, there's actually there's a men's and a women's team that are both quite popular. There's a lot of people, a lot of fans of both teams. I think they play in the same place in Providence Park in downtown Portland. And the men's team is still bigger, but a lot of that is just because of the size of the league, the major league soccer. There's a lot of diehard Thorns fans. The Thorns are the female team. The Timbers are the men's team. and but but yeah they're both very big um comparatively and the timbers is an actually a pretty interesting team because it has a very very dedicated fan base um there are a lot of people There's a lot of fans of basically every big sports team, right? And there's usually people that will go to the home games and they'll sing and they'll chant and whatever. But the Timbers go a step further. There is a pretty large group of people that will be at every single game they play, home and away, And they're often called the Timbers Army. They usually give them a specific section. They sing the entire time and they have a bit of a reputation in the in the US League for being like this really hardcore team or not team hardcore group of fans for the team. Um, and which makes it kind of interesting to go to away games. Even people will go to away games like it's a, they'll make it a trip. Um, which is not as common for a lot of other teams in the U S it definitely happens, right? People will go see their favorite teams or they'll, if they happen to be in a city and that their favorite team is playing there, they'll almost likely go see, right? But it's not as common in the US for people to travel to see their favorite team frequently. I don't know what happened during or after COVID because I don't follow the actual team. I assume that it was less popular to travel for a while or if you couldn't travel, right? But probably it's back, right? I doubt that the Timbers would be swayed very much. The Timbers Army is what they're called. Um, the actual soccer team is fine. They're pretty good. They have a couple of good players, uh, that's that stand out and their team is usually pretty solid, but they're definitely not the best team in the league. They're not known for being like always at the top or anything. It's a pretty like normal team. Uh, they do typically, uh, have a lot to offer. No, that's not, it's the wrong term. Um, they, they have a lot of, they're very competitive in the West coast. So there's something called the Cascadia cup, um, Cascadia cup, which is a sort of a section of the U S and I think Canada that has a couple of teams in it, which actually looks to be just like three. Oh, nevermind. It's just three teams, nevermind. But yeah, it's from Vancouver, Portland, and Seattle. So it's a little bit of Canada into Northwestern US teams. So there's the Portland Timbers, the Seattle Soundler. The Portland Timbers, the Seattle Sounders, and the Vancouver Whitecaps. And the Portland Timbers win relatively often, although it looks like about a third, so it's pretty normal. Nothing crazy. They won in 2022, it looks like, and they have games going on this year. Still, it looks like there's two more games left, and the Timbers are tied for first, it looks like, right now. So they could win this year. I don't know. I'm not watching, and I don't really care. But yeah, I thought it was more teams than that, which is why I brought it up, but I don't actually know that much about soccer. I did want to say something else though about soccer, the Timbers, I don't know. Oh, I guess just that like, yeah, like I said, I'm not very interested in soccer or really any sports. I don't really follow sports at all. But my family was always interested in the Timbers, right? My dad is a big Timbers fan. Not like massive, but he would, he'll definitely put on the game up in the upstairs room. And there's, we only have one TV or I guess they only have one TV. I don't live with them anymore. they only have one tv and it's usually in an open room and so you can hear people talking in the tv room if somebody's watching something and he'll definitely yell at the tv and shout uh about uh calls or plays or whatever which is always a little bit funny especially in their new house because he's upstairs and so you hear it in the entire house very very well um and it's kind of funny but a lot of them Him and a lot of our friends even will watch games together, go to sports bars, it's fun. And I'll sometimes will tag along if they're doing something interesting, almost never because of the game, just because of like the food or whatever. But we know a lot of big Timbers fans as well. So it's definitely a fun vibe, I would say, being a fan of a team that's local and you can sometimes go to games and whatnot. Like I said, I don't ever go, I don't really care. But I did go to school next to the field and so I would see games happening sometimes or hear them if I was at the school late for some reason. I would hear the games going on and people shouting and yelling and stuff, which is also a little bit fun because it's a cool energy. I don't know. I feel like living next to it would be pretty annoying, but yeah. With a funny story about the Thorns is that, which is the female team, is that they're also, like I said, growing a lot in popularity and their game is really popular to go to. And one time I was hanging out with a friend of mine and she's a big Thorns fan. And we saw one of the coaches or something like that, I think like the goalie coach. And she was acting like that we saw a celebrity. And I was like, it's just a coach on her phone, probably waiting for a game to happen or something like that. And she's like, but she's the... I found that very, very funny that somebody would be so... Not smitten taken or excited about seeing the coach of a of a team But I mean, I guess if you're a fan right and you know that you know that the coach and they do really good stuff That's kind of a cool thing. But yeah Anyways, that's basically all I can talk about about soccer. I'd have essentially no other stories I hope that you enjoyed this episode if you were a soccer fan I would definitely love to hear what your favorite team is down in the comments below and But, again, I will see you tomorrow for another episode of A Daily Dose of English. Have a good one. Bye.


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