This is an All Ears English podcast episode 2027.
Is your country in the Women's World Cup?
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Football or soccer, depending on where you're from is one of the rare universal topics of connection for anyone around the globe.
Today.
Find out how you can participate in these passionate conversations in English.
When it comes to the World Cup,
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Hey, Aubrey, what's going on?
How are you?
Hey, I'm excited for in just a couple of days, the Women's World Cup starts.
We know a very avid soccer fan, don't we, Lindsay?
She's on our team.
Jessica is a big soccer fan.
I know she plays soccer.
She watches soccer.
She's super passionate about women's soccer.
Yes.
So amazing.
So awesome.
And my kids play soccer.
So I go to a lot of soccer games, football to most of the rest of the world.
But in the US, we call it soccer.
Why is that?
Why do we call it so differently from the rest of the world?
I don't know.
It is strange.
It would be interesting to find out why it got switched to soccer and why we call it that.
I don't know that.
I don't know.
So when did the game start here in the women's world cup?
So in two days, women's world cup, it's interesting.
All of you listening out there.
I would love to know if your country is in the Women's World Cup right.
Australia, New Zealand, the US, Spain and Germany.
This is an exciting one.
And soccer fans are just so diehard, which just means the same as Avid, right?
They are serious about it.
They are big fans.
They love their teams, which makes this a really great conversation topic.
Yes, 100%.
Oh, I love this topic for our listeners because so many of our listeners are going to love soccer around the world.
Diehard fans.
Where do we go today for today's episode, Aubrey?
So we found this really cool article about the 2023 Women's World Cup, which is sort of record-breaking or potentially record-breaking because there might be a three-peat.
So that word and some other vocab in English we're going to teach you so that you're ready to start a conversation about this with anyone at work, at home friends family, anyone who might be a soccer fan or not.
This is a fun conversation.
I love it.
I love it.
And I think we've talked a little bit on All Ears English about FIFA, about the corruption in FIFA, about the World Cup, Men's World Cup but a lot of the talent is with the women.
Yeah.
Yes, absolutely.
Right.
Have you ever been anywhere where the World Cup is happening and been able to see when?
On my honeymoon, when I was young in France, I was we were there for the World Cup and all of the sports bars just like the little bars were packed and everyone was so loud and exciting.
It was quite an event.
Yeah, I've had two experiences similar to that one.
In 2010, I was hiking the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain.
I think I was actually in Pamplona. also around the time of running of the bulls, which was insane.
Just lucky, lucky timing.
And I, that was when in 2010, when Spain won the world cup.
So I was in a small town bar in Spain when they won.
And then just in Argentina, we were in Argentina right before they won the world cup here in 2022 and last year, end of last year.
So yeah, I've been close to it adjacent to these big world soccer events.
Yeah, it's so fun to see these like super diehard fans get so excited for their team, and I can't even imagine just the excitement and happiness when their country wins.
It's so exciting oh, there's so much emotion.
It just matters so much to people around the world.
This game I think soccer is just sorry.
Football is yes, so much more than a game to most of the world.
It carries uh history politics influencers, way of life, values.
It's so much more than a game.
Right, absolutely often, the team that you root for right, the team you support your parents and your grandparents like, it's a family thing too right, a lot of family bonds are over the maybe the football team they support and always cheer for, and a lot of interesting events are planned around these games.
So it's a big deal.
It's a big deal.
It's a big deal.
I love it.
I love it.
So, all right.
So we want to go through some vocabulary for our listeners today to really be able to grab onto these conversations.
Yes, right.
So this article?
The first thing that we noticed that would be super interesting to talk about is it was saying that a lot of people are setting their sights on the Women's World Cup right.
It is going to be in Australia, New Zealand.
And that's an interesting idiom to set your sights on something.
It means you're looking forward to it.
You're planning on it, right?
And we use it all the time in English, just something where we're looking forward to.
We set our sights on it, something kind of on the horizon coming up right, and that we're already starting to think about, plan for that kind of thing exactly.
Even an athlete, you might say they set their sights on a win.
Right, this athlete is setting their sights on winning the women's world cup.
Yeah, i love it.
And then the next chunk of vocabulary guys would be favored to win, right.
Who is favored to win, Like?
Who's expected to win right?
And in this 2023 Women's World Cup, the top four that are favored to win are the US England, Spain and Germany.
So this for any sport or race, there's often a team that's favored to win, that's expected to win.
And the other team or teams sometimes are called an underdog.
I like to root for the underdog.
I love it when someone wins that it wasn't expected to win.
Yeah.
Usually for men's soccer, the U.S. doesn't go very far.
I think this past time they did, though, if I remember correctly.
I think they went further than they normally would.
Not like women's.
The women's U.S. soccer team is amazing.
Well, that's why it's.
You know I think maybe we do a follow-up episode on this about the controversy in women's pay, on the women's soccer league, the FIFA Women's World Cup or the Women's World Cup.
Because the pay does not match the quality of the play, right?
And they've been fighting for that for many years.
Right.
We've talked about this in the business world, just the pay gap, gender pay gap.
But this is huge in sports for athletes, both pay gap and also often the amount of fervor behind the games or the amount of people right
There's not equality in a lot of ways in sports.
Right.
It's so weird.
You would think that you have men's soccer in the US.
I'm just talking US now.
I'm not talking Argentina, Spain.
You have women's soccer.
Clearly, the women's soccer is a better team.
So why would that not get all the attention?
It does within a niche group of fans.
But I think world cup men's is more broad and you know, absolutely it is bothered me.
It's a lot more glaring, the um inequality there, especially in pay.
Because if they're such a reputable, prestigious team and we can go over that word here too right they, they inspire respect and admiration.
That's what prestigious means, because they win a lot and they're so good that players are amazing.
So the pay should be equal, if not better.
If they're doing better than the men's team, they should be paid more.
I would think so.
That makes sense to me.
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
Never ending controversy for sure.
And then what about this term, a three-peat?
Yeah.
So this means to win three times in a row.
So it's sort of a play on the word repeat, a three-peat.
So the US could complete a historic three-peat is what's in this article meaning they would win the World Cup three times in a row?
Oh, I love that.
When I was young, I followed a lot of tennis.
I played tennis, followed a lot of tennis.
And they use this term to talk about Pete Sampras Sampras winning three, you know, and so I thought it was actually just a tennis thing.
And I thought it was three Pete, like get it three Pete, like Peter, Pete, name Dr. Pete.
And now I'm learning today.
It's about more than just tennis.
Very good.
You were today years old when you learned three Pete's not just about tennis.
Oh, there's so much I learned on the show with you, Aubrey.
It's really good. all right aubrey so what about some conversation starters here what can we do to get this conversation going yeah we want you guys to be able to start a conversation about this it's an interesting thing to talk about so we'll give you a couple of ways to jump in and start that conversation first you can say Are you going to watch the and in this case, Women's World Cup, right?
Are you going to watch the Women's World Cup?
And of course, you can replace that with any sport, any match that's coming up.
So it's important to kind of stay up on sports news and know the big events that are coming up so that you can ask a conversation, start a conversation about it.
Oh, my gosh, for sure.
And then number two is who do you want to win?
Right.
So very basic, very straightforward.
But guys, you don't need some fancy wordsmithing to start a connection conversation about this topic.
Exactly right.
We sign that article, this phrase favored to win.
But I wouldn't use that in a conversation.
Who do you think is favored to win?
This is more likely you're going to see it in the news.
You're going to hear it in a report.
But when we're just having a casual conversation about it, we'll just say who do you think will win or who do you want to win.
Yeah.
And then if you want to get into, you know, we can.
You know, here we're keeping it to purely to the sport, the game which is great.
Right.
Keeping it very non-controversial.
But if you did want to get into the pay gap.
Right.
How would we maybe open a conversation?
Just a spontaneous idea.
What would you say to open up a conversation about that?
Yeah.
You could see what do you think about pay inequality in sports?
And you're still keeping it pretty general.
And then if the person you're asking has an opinion about, then they might specifically talk about soccer or certain sports they're familiar with.
So that might be good to sort of start at general and see where it goes.
I like how you start at general, because that also lets you feel out whether this is a conversation you want to have with this person.
Right.
I mean sometimes maybe someone isn't aware of the pay gap in men's and women's soccer, or they don't care.
So it's not really worth it having that conversation, I think, unless you're trying to build awareness.
And so we can ask something super broad to feel it out, like dip our toe in the water and see.
Right.
Yeah.
It's interesting because we do want to leave it open, knowing that whoever we're talking to is going to have strong opinions in some areas and less so in other areas.
So, if we can start a conversation a little more general, give them a chance to add what's really interesting to them.
And then the conversation will be much more two-sided and interesting for everyone.
It's true.
I think it's a turnoff to anyone when you come into a conversation like a bull in a china shop and say i think this, what do you think it's just a turn off, even if they agree with you.
It's too much back off.
If you want a true connection okay, just back off.
That's a really good point.
It's too much.
Um, i do have an interesting observation.
I've always wondered why, when it comes and i know why right, because women's world cup is not considered why do we say women's world cup and why do we say world cup for men's world cup?
Like why?
It's interesting.
I think that really gets into why there is a pay gap and why there are more fans on one side, right?
Because just the fact that you're just calling it World Cup instead of Men's World Cup implies that that is the World Cup.
And then the other one is secondaries, Women's World Cup.
Or why do we say WNBA and NBA, right?
Right.
Why isn't it MNBA?
Yeah.
It's interesting how a lot of these implications and stereotypes and mindsets are created because of the language that we use.
The titles we use for things and the way we talk about things reinforce these stereotypes.
Words really matter, you know.
Words really matter.
Words set a tone.
Words create prestige or lack thereof.
So it does matter what we name things.
That's super interesting, aubry.
Yes, absolutely.
I think this is a great takeaway that we do want to think about the language we're using in a lot of ways, right?
As our society is becoming more modern, more thoughtful, more tolerant and respectful, we're trying to think about how to be better with the language we use.
And sports is another one of the things on the list, right?
Think about how we're talking about it, what we're saying and if maybe some adjustments should be made.
Yeah, and also the fact that guys go back, listen to this episode again, review it, write down these terms.
We've given you some basic terms right, but these are just good enough to get that conversation started.
I think soccer is probably one of the five things that you can talk about with pretty much anyone in the world, like having conversations with argentine people in argentina.
November was amazing about soccer.
Right, that's amazing to be able to do that sit down and talk about soccer with someone.
It's a universal topic.
We all love the game, so Really, hone in on these conversation starters to get further with your connection in English.
Absolutely.
I think that's such a great takeaway, right?
You want to start conversations that are going to be fun and lively and interesting.
And soccer is one of those things that it's pretty rare someone who is apathetic about soccer, or even if they don't play or they don't have a favorite team, they're still interested.
They know someone who is.
For sure.
So go for it, guys.
Go for that connection around soccer.
So good.
I mean, football, of course.
Of course.
We mean football.
All right, Aubrey.
Thanks for talking football today.
It's been fun.
Yes, absolutely.
I'll see you next time.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye.
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