A glossary of sorts
Let’s slow down for just a second. I still need to get my head around the fact that you’re starting to talk, and it has me appreciating that you might need some time to get your head around all of these words that keep coming up in our newsletters.
An American soccer vocabulary is kind of a funny thing.
We’re of course speaking English, but it is slightly different than the language spoken in England. Linguistic Darwinism. And then soccer, within that, has its own little evolutionary quirks and phrases. It can be hard to keep up with.
So, a glossary of vaguely synonymous words:
Game and match are interchangeable (don’t tell tennis).
A soccer field and pitch, same same.
A kit is a jersey, except that technically a jersey is just the shirt whereas kit is referring to the full regalia of the jersey plus shorts and matching socks. But then in conversational terms it can also just mean the shirt.
There is of course soccer and football, but you’ll know that one already.
An interesting tangle of meanings comes out with cup competitions, those non-league tournaments (FA Cup, EFL Cup, etc) that all British clubs participate in, as well as the European tournaments (Champions League, eg) that can be qualified for. A match is called a tie, as in, “they have a Wednesday night tie against York City in the FA Cup”, and this is confusing because tie also means draw, as in ending the 90 minutes with the same score. And because these things are sometimes circular you’ve got the fact that a draw is the randomized process by which ties are determined for cup competitions, as in “the draw has them against York City in the next round.”
Just on a personal note, I’ve been referring to my sister as both your mom and your mother, but after checking in it would appear that you know her as mama, which means you’ve probably been pretty confused by who I’m talking about all these months.
And while we’re on names, Arsenal are known as the Gunners, and it’s common to hear fans say, “come on you Gunners” when they are playing or about to play.
There are probably over 18 synonyms for goal, but I think those are generally interpretable when seen in context.
Wanker, contrary to popular usage, isn’t actually another word for ref.
VAR is an acronym for Video Assistant Review, which is a feature allowing the game to be paused so that a wanker hundreds of miles away from the stadium can have some say on whether a goal should stand, whether a penalty kick should be given, or what to do about a potential red card situation. It remains up for debate whether this modernization, only four years older than you, is ruining the game or saving it.
A goalie and keeper are the same thing.
A striker is often called a nine.
There are actually a handful of numbers which correlate to positions on the field, a shorthand that I assume is based on the famous repetition of great players wearing those particular numbers while playing the position. It’s a point of pride for a team’s striker to wear the #9 kit, for an attacking central midfielder to wear #10.
A derby is a match played between teams who share a city. There are many permutations of London derbies.
Here’s a language quirk that bothers me, and I can’t tell if it’s a British thing or soccer thing, but commentators frequently use the phrase just about under a different meaning than how I understand those words. The phrase that comes up in the course of games when a player barely manages to accomplish something. A commentator will say, “the defender does just about enough to clear the box.” But they only ever say this when the defender has quite literally done enough to clear the box. It’s like just about, in this context, is an indication of effort rather than result. I don’t understand it. I don’t expect you to. We’ll work on this one together.
The captain of a team is their skipper.
The coach is a manager but can also be called the gaffer. I don’t know if you’ll ever hear me refer to Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta as the gaffer because I kind of associate the word with dusty British coaches from the middle of the last century.
All right we can leave it there.
It’s a lot, I know. But just wait until your mama or your Uncle Ben gets you in front of Shakespeare. Technically still English, but language really is a moving target.
A vocabulary is a grand thing, Hobbes. I’ve never really considered what it’s like to build one from scratch.