To secure – this short podcast on the language of football introduces the phrase, ‘to secure’, and words that this verb is used with in football. Check out the transcript of the show below. You also make sure you check out our huge glossary of footballing phrases here and visit our site to access all our previous posts and podcasts. Teachers of English can use the audio and transcript to provide practice for their students, too. Try a gap-fill activity for example. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com. Learn English Through Football DB: Hi there, everybody. Welcome to languagecaster and our football language podcast. Damian in London and myself in Tokyo have been publishing these podcasts since 2006. That was way back during the World Cup in Germany. Of course, we’ve just had the 2022 version of the World Cup, but football never stops and national teams around the world have been taking part in qualifiers for competitions this month, including in Europe. Teams are hoping to secure a berth in the Euro 2024 competition. It is this verb, to secure, that we will focus on today. It’s used in a variety of ways with different words, so let’s get started. But before we do, here is a message from a Norwegian fan of football. Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Norwegian) DB: Brilliant! Thanks for that ‘you are listening to languagecaster’ message in Norwegian. (to) Secure DB: OK, let’s take a look at the verb secure and how I used it in the introduction to the show – to secure a berth. To secure, means to get, to reserve, to obtain, and berth is a place, or spot, so secure a berth in the Euro 2024 competition means to get a place in the tournament, to qualify. We also use ‘secure ‘ with other words, too. Let’s look at the Women’s Super League in England and this season, which is coming to an exciting end. Back in February, we had this in a report in Forbes: “Perhaps more importantly, they (Manchester United) are now six clear of Arsenal in fourth place as they seek to secure a top-three place and a berth in next season’s UEFA Champions League.” Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'w5gztJs4ScpD6Am5Ow9LxA',sig:'KHHcHUdqFp3GiN7nASQB9IkxqrJUnEe2RAIH4oRxnRo=',w:'594px',h:'420px',items:'1476291872',caption: false ,tld:'com',is360: false })}); (to) Secure a place So, here we have the verb used with a place in the league, a top-three place. And the report also uses berth in the UEFA Champion’s League, so we have both uses: secure a place (in the league) and secure a berth (in a competition). Notice with place, or spot, the use of the position, so top-three place. In the men’s Premier League, team’s try to secure a top-four spot, and a top-six spot is usually enough for European football (to) secure points And this month, March, we have tottenham-hotspur-vs-leicester-city-womens-super-league-preview-gameweek-12-2023.html">this example in Vavel.com: “Goals from Ashleigh Neville and Drew Spence helped secu...