rising geopolitical pressure between russia and ukraine coincided with an important international clash in the world of sport earlier this month. the headline of this associated press story by mike corder observed…
RUSSIA VS. UKRAINE PLAYS OUT IN FUTSAL SEMIFINAL
play out is a phrasal verb that means happens. is represented.
this match was particularly interesting because…
european soccer’s governing body, uefa, has ensured that ukrainian and russian teams aren’t drawn to play one another since 2014, the year russia annexed crimea. but in a written statement uefa said that the measure to keep teams apart “for obvious reasons cannot apply to the entire knockout stages of tournaments like the uefa futsal euro 2022.”
has ensured is present perfect (auxiliary has + past participle [ensured]). it is frequently used with since to refer to an action that happened in the past and continues to the present. ensure means guarantee. aren’t drawn is passive voice (auxiliary aren’t + past pariticple drawn). it is referring to an object (teams) receiving an action (drawn) not a subject performing the action. draw means select randomly. a measure is a plan. the knockout stage is the elimination phase of the tournament — the winning team advances and the losing team goes home.
a football drawing (like this one) is different than the draw at a football tournament (welovesolo.com)
the novelty (unusualness) of the moment was recorded like this by corder
amid the simmering tensions between their two countries, five-a-side soccer teams from russia and ukraine face one another in the semifinals of the futsal european championships
and like this in an article in the moscow times
[the semifinal] comes amid extreme tensions between the two countries as russia’s buildup of troops near the ukrainian border has raised fears of a potential offensive by moscow on its westerly neighbor
amid is used in both articles it means in the middle of. simmer means be right below the boiling point. five-a-side means futsal teams have 5 players; different than the 11 players on a standard football team. side means team. face means compete against. one another means ukraine and russia were opponents in the semifinals.
ukraine’s side at the five-a-side euro2022
as means because in this scenario. a buildup is an increase (it’s related to the phrasal verb build up). raise means increase too. westerly means ukraine is west of russia. the border is the imaginary line that divides ukraine and russia. it is used in the title of this elton john song from 50 years ago. u can also hear the idiom cup of tea which elton uses to say that he doesn’t like the cirucumstances he is in. listen at 1:00 for
won’t u please excuse my frankness but it ain’t my cup of tea
the president of russia’s futsal association emil aliyev didn’t want to talk about politics. corder described aliyev’s opinion in this way…
any suspense surrounding the match should concern the length of time since the two nations played each other, rather than the geopolitical backdrop,
surrounding means around. should means that’s what is correct. concern means be about. length is the noun equivalent of the adjective long. backdrop refers to what is happening. rather than shows a preference, in this case for focusing on how long it had been since ukraine and russia played in an international football competition vs the geopolitical situation.
check out this trippy backdrop for your desktop 🙀
and specifically, aliyev said
this is the nature of sports, in particular futsal — it is removed from politics. it would be better if everyone sorted out their relationships — who is stronger or faster — on the sports field.
sort out means fix, resolve. it would be better if everyone sorted out is second conditonal i.e. a hypothetical. in reality we don’t always sort out international relationships through sports. russia won the match and a few days later invaded ukraine.
an example of the phrasal verb sort out from an iconic ron weasley line from the harry potter saga
the english practice extra for this post is a tik tok that contains graphics for the following vocabulary: like, fuck, offspring, speaking of, talk shit, totes, border, cup of tea, pumped, weary, swindle, worth + -ing, pleased as punch and make sense of it. additionally, listen for examples of politics, fucking and goddamn 👉🏽 vocabulary that appears in other posts on richyrocks.com.
@richyrocksenglish visit richyrocks.com for more complete information & #english #vocabulary 👉🏼search futsal #englishpractice #englishteacher #englishclass #ingles ♬ Wicked Game – Chris Isaak
there is also mention of the treaty of tordesillas (tratado de tordesillas en español) which was the political arrangement that divided the world between the portuguese and spanish empires in 1494.
what are your feelings about the current geopolitical crisis in europe? share your opinions under leave a reply