World Cup Lingo, Explained

If you’ve been watching the World Cup on ESPN and/or ABC, then you may have noticed that most of the announcers are British. This is quite a comfort to the growing number of American fans of the English Premier League, where we’ve become used to announcers who are knowledgeable but also sound like they've read a book or two in their time. ("A speculative effort from 40 yards out..." "a buccaneering run through midfield..." "a yellow card shown to the miscreant...")

However, in soccer as in so many other things, England and America are two countries separated by a common tongue. The language of soccer uses familiar words that, in this context, have specific and often unfamiliar meanings. So just in time for the semifinals, we present a little Soccer-English-To-English glossary.

FINALS

You may sometimes hear the announcers refer to the World Cup as the "finals." This has nothing to do with the group stage, the knockout stage, the quarterfinals, the semifinals, or the final. The World Cup tournament itself is officially the final step in a years-long competition that every country with a registered Football Association is allowed to participate in. The 32 countries that made it to Brazil were the top countries in their continents, having sorted themselves out through a series of games whose format varies with each continent. (The USA finished first in CONCACAF, the association governing North and Central America and the Caribbean. Mexico, Honduras and Costa Rica also qualified from our group.)

CAP

You can probably figure this out from the context, but "this is his 100th cap for his country" means that player is playing for the 100th time for his national team. Apparently, in the early days, the U.K. actually gave hats to players for appearing in international play. 

TIE

Here in America, we use "tie" to mean a game that ends in a draw -- even though we use the expression "win, lose or draw" and not "win, lose or tie." So what is a "tie" in soccer? It can mean a match (oh by the way: MATCH. The correct name for a game), but it more often means a two-legged, home-and-away set of matches. In most leagues, every team plays every other team twice, once at each team's home ground. That's a tie. The World Cup finals would be too ungainly if that happened, but other tournaments use two-legged ties as well. 

CUP-TIED

When a player enters a tournament with one team, but later moves to another, he can not play for that other team if they are also in that tournament; he is said to be "cup-tied." You probably won't hear this at the World Cup, but in other tournaments you might. 

CLEAN SHEET

A shutout. 

CENTRE HALF

This is a little tricky. If you're paying attention -- even if you've been watching soccer for a while -- you may notice the English announcers calling the guys playing in the center of the defense "centre halves," while their American color-commentators (Casey Keller, Taylor Twellman) call them "center backs." I mean, it seems pretty clear, right? Forwards up front, halfbacks in the middle, fullbacks in the back? And the players on the outside right and left are in fact referred to as fullbacks. But that's because historically, those two hulking defenders would have been center halfbacks, and the two fullbacks were left in the back by themselves. Over the years their positions have changed to be the stalwarts of that back line, but many English persist in calling them by a name that hasn't really applied in decades. 

NUMBER 9 and NUMBER 10

You may hear an announcer or commentator point out that Germany's Thomas Müller is playing as a "false Number 9."  Traditionally, the number 9 jersey has been worn by a team's center forward -- the striker. This person stays furthest forward, holds up the ball to bring teammates into the play, and of course, scores goals. These days, a striker can wear whatever number he or she wants. The number 10 was traditionally for the attacking halfback or midfielder whose job was to be an offensive playmaker and also score. Again, most "Number 10"s wear whatever numbers they want.  

Germany came to Brazil with only one recognized striker, Miroslav Klose, who despite playing the Number 9 role wears number 11. But Klose is now 36 and used basically as a substitute. So Müller, who is one of several Number 10-type attacking midfielders on the German roster (and who wears number 13), has been roaming up into that center forward area at times, even though he is not a real Number 9 player.  

By the way, as you watch Brazil and Argentina in the semifinals, notice that these teams do still use the traditional numbering: Gonzalo Higuain wears 9 for Argentina because he is their center forward.  The superstar Lionel Messi, who is usually given license to go anywhere, wears 10. For Brazil, Fred plays the Number 9 role and wears that number. The injured playmaker Neymar wears 10.

PARK THE BUS

This basically means retreating into a tight defensive shell and trying to stop any kind of attack. Dropping your midfielders back and having something like eight defenders in front of the keeper (uh, KEEPER.  Goalie.). This is usually done as time runs down and a team is trying to protect a lead, and has given up any hope of really adding to it. Purists hate "parking the bus."

SOCCER

Yes, you know what it means. It's what Americans call football. But did you know it is actually what the English called football first? This is a dark secret the Brits would like to forget. They prefer to think that Americans use "soccer" because we are so invested in being different and distinctive and better than everyone else. But the fact is that when players at the prestigious Rugby School in England began picking up the football with their hands in the middle of the 19th century, the footballing community faced a quandary. Were hands allowed or not? Some schools decided to play the "Rugby Rules" game; others stuck with the foot-only version. This latter version came to be known as Association Football. Given the English knack for adding "-er" to the ends of words (a five-pound note is a fiver, a ten-pound note is a tenner), it wasn't long before Rugby became “rugger,” and Association Football became Assoc Football, and then... soccer.

So go ahead, use "soccer" instead of "football."  And if the match ends in a nil-nil draw, because both teams parked the bus, you are certainly free to say the game was tied, zero-zero, and was really boring. But really, how often can you pick up a whole new language without having to learn any new words?

All of this suggests a rather obvious song: in the film My Fair Lady, Henry Higgins famously asks, “Why can’t the English learn to speak?” (Includes this little gem: “there are even places where English completely disappears / Why, in America, they haven’t used it for years.”)