Soccer (source : www.treehugger.com)

Are you a soccer fan? I love playing soccer. The winter league just started and I play soccer every Monday from Oct to Feb. Last Monday, I noticed a few expressions, playing soccer, that you might be interested in.

1. Sub!

This is not a sub that you would order at a restaurant, as you may imagine. 🙂

In the league games, there are 7 players in each team but we usually have around 18 people coming regularly. That means each team has two substitutes. When one player is trying to come out, then he/she says, “Sub,” to the people waiting. This is shortened version of substitute. There is no time during the game to say the full word. In fact, I have never heard anyone saying the full word when I play soccer.

2. Back or Front?

But then, when you sub, the person who will join the game would ask you, “Back or front?”, to you as he/she goes in. Why do you think he/she asks that question and what are the right answers? That is right! He/she wants to figure out the position you played and your answer would be like “Back center” or “Front right.” Well, how simple and short! Interestingly, this is exactly what happened to me last Monday. When I try to come out, saying “Sub!”, the guy who is going to go in asked me “Back or front?” Well, I did not get the meaning as quick as possible. Like 5 seconds later, I realized that what he meant when he asked that question but it was too late to answer. How stupid? I mean, it is such an easy question but I missed it (Honestly, I did not know whether he was talking to me or not.) and did not say anything to him when he asked it. The problem is this kind of conversation happens so fast and hard to catch up later once you miss it at the moment.

3. Got your back!

Speaking of back and front, there is another saying you can say during the game. “Got your back!” You can say this when anther player who is in front of you, having the ball, but cannot figure out how to go forward. If he heard you, chances are he will pass the ball to you.

4. It is all yours!

Can you guess when you can use this expression? Let me describe you the situation when you can use this. I was up front center and a midfielder passed the ball really well to me. Then, there is nobody who is blocking me and I got the ball under control. The only thing I need to do is calm down and put the ball into the goal. In that situation, all of my team players would be like, “Terry, it is all yours!” What do you think? Do you think I made that goal?