Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:38 — 4.3MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Podchaser | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | Youtube Music | | More
In this week’s football phrase we look at the expression tear apart after the Champions League game between Manchester City and PSG. You can read the transcript for this podcast below, while you can also check out our glossary of footballing phrases here and visit our site to access all our previous posts and podcasts. If you have any suggestions or questions about the phrase or our podcast then you can contact us here.
Hello
DF: Hello there everyone. My name is Damian and this is the weekly football phrase from the Learn English through football team when we explain a phrase or a football term from the previous week’s football. And this week we are going to look at the expression, ‘to tear apart‘ after PSG’s performance against Manchester City in the Champions League this week.
Stinger:You are listening to the Learn English through football podcast
Tear Apart
DF: Right, so PSG defeated Manchester City in the Champions League this week by four goals to two but it was a real game of two halves – remember this classic football cliche which of course means that one team dominated in the first half, while the other team was much stronger in the second half. And we are going to focus on the first-half performance from PSG which was fantastic as they raced into a three-nil lead at half time. The BBC report suggested that PSG were tearing City apart.
So, to tear a team apart means that one side is playing really well and is easily defeating the other team: they are destroying them; overwhelming them; overrunning them. The opposition cannot get near them and they are being torn apart. And a similar expression would be ‘taken apart’. Imagine that the defence has been broken, the system is not working and players cannot get near the opposition. And this is what happened in the first half as PSG completely dominated the game and did not let City play at all. They were torn apartby PSG. PSG tore them apart in the first half.
Here are some examples from some different media outlets:
Examples:
PSG were tearing City apart, Vitinha adding the third after 32 minutes with a clinical finish after superb link play between Maghnes Akliouche and Warren Zaire-Emery (BBC.co.uk).
Manchester City showed plenty against the back-to-back European champions after being torn apart in the first half. (Yahoo.com)
City were ripped apart by the back-to-back champions in the first half, with quick-fire goals from Désiré Doué and Ousmane Dembélé establishing control (Reuters.com).
Contact
DF: Remember, if you have any questions or comments about this week’s football expression or indeed any other football language then you can drop us an email at contact@learnenglishthroughfootball.com. You can find us also on Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram and YouTube. We also have a football-language forum where you can ask and answer any questions you have on the language of football. And, don’t forget to support us by liking our podcasts and sharing them with your friends – we appreciate it very, very much.
Language Review
DF: OK, so, on today’s short podcast we have looked at the phrase, ‘tear apart’. And in the past we would say ‘torn apart’or ‘tore apart’. And this is used to describe when one team outplays the other side. We also heard the phrases, ‘take apart’; ‘rip apart’ and ‘to thrash’, as well as ‘demolished’ and ‘outplayed’. Try and listen out for these phrases when watching football over the weekend.
Stinger: You are listening to the Learn English Through Football Podcast (in Arabic)
Goodbye
DF: Yes, you are listening to the Learn English through football Podcast and that message was in Arabic.
That’s it for this week’s football expression – sorry we have been running a little bit late recently but we both Damon and myself are at the start of teaching terms at the moment, so it’s quite busy. Remember that the phrase today was ‘torn apart’. We’ll be back with more football language at the weekend with another football-language podcast. And this week we’ll be looking back at some more language from the Champions League action and of course looking ahead to some of the big games over the weekend. Enjoy the football this week. We’ll see you soon. Bye bye.
Related Links
Welcome to the website that helps students interested in football improve their English language skills. Soccer fans can enhance these skills with lots of free language resources: a weekly podcast, football phrases, explanations of football vocabulary, football cliches, worksheets, quizzes and much more at languagecaster.com.
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
