As important as physical fitness and skill with a football, is the ability to relay to an interviewer completely banal shit, using tried and tested phrases. The football world has almost decided to exist on using no more than 500 or so words. A selection of the key ones, and the terms created by football-types is shown below.
It was a bad day at the office.
We set out our stall.
We're taking each game one at a time.
We're very disappointed.
It's a funny old game.
The lads played well.
We're looking forward to the next game.
We knew it wouldn't be easy.
That's football for you.
We must put this behind us.
I can't fault the players for effort.
He's not a malicious player.
They're a great set of lads.
We dug deep.
They caused us a few problems.
Go out and enjoy yourselves.
We need to dust ourselves down and move on.
That's what the game's all about.
They made it very difficult for us.
I didn't see it.
It was the icing on the cake.
They have strength in depth.
They need a change of personnel.
A favourite of Andy Townsend is the term for being tackled - apparently now better identified by the phrase "he had his pocket picked". A classic Alan Hansen offering is "the basic fundamentals".
And what's with the fractions. The only place anything is relevant is seemingly "the final third", and the standard unit of measurement on the football field is now "half a yard". Alan Shearer's favourite terms are devoid of any notion of grammar, and completely superfluous to human life.
Finally, I was watching TV a couple of weeks ago but wondered if the green rectangle was in fact a snooker table rather than a football pitch, or if it was perhaps a cricket pitch. This was quite simply a result of the commentator using terms unfamiliar to me. "Pocket" and "Gulley" are most definitely not areas or positions relating to football! The "channels" and the "hole" are the two other commonly mentioned oddities that have no basis for being referred to or used in commentary.
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