Just like watching Brazil
During a recent Portuguese lesson (yes, I’ve restarted lessons!) a word came up that was unfamiliar to me – goleou. The context was the description of a football match and went something like “Last Saturday night Barcelona goleou AC Milan”. I asked my teacher about this word and she said “It’s when one team beats another team by many goals. You know, like a chocolate” (pronounced in the Portuguese manner: shocko-LATCH). Well, that left me even more confused/intrigued. I’d never heard of a chocolate in football. I decided some research was in order.
It turns out that the national obsession of Brazil has given rise to a rich and diverse set of words, phrases and sayings. I expect that today’s post will be just the tip of the football iceberg so if there any football experts out there then I’d love to hear about the ones I’ve missed out.
Goleada
As my teacher told me, a goleada is a what English commentators might call a drubbing. A win with a large margin of victory. Goleada is the noun, goleou is the 3rd person past tense conjugation of the verb golear (to win by many goals). There is some discussion over exactly what constitutes a goleada, some saying that the margin of victory must be at least 3, others saying it must be 4.
This cartoon, entitled Blue Chocolate, celebrates the goleada of Brazilian side Cruzeiro over Venezuelan size Caracas back in 2008. Final score 3-0. The fox (?) of Cruzeiro is saying “Give Hugo Chavez a hug from me if you can”.
In researching this I found that the greatest Brazilian goleada was in 1909 when Botafogo beat Mangueira 24-0! The greatest of all time was between two Madagascan teams – AS Adema beat SOE Antananarivo 149-0! Apparently the players from SOE were unhappy with the refereeing and so, in protest, decided to shoot into their own goal. That must have been awesome. Sorry to go off on such a tangent, but the next greatest goleada was in 1885 in Scotland when Arbroath beat Bon Acord 36-0 in the Scottish Cup. In the same competition, on the same day, the next highest goleada (35-0) happened between Dundee Harp and Aberdeen Rovers.
Chocolate
As already mentioned, chocolate is pretty much the same thing as a goleada. An easy win. It could be that the emphasis is slightly more towards the style of victory, in that the victors found it easy. It pains me to include this link, but the first example of a chocolate victory that springs to mind was Leeds United’s 7-0 demolition of Southampton in 1972. The last minute includes some rather fine showboating (if you’re not a Southampton fan).
A bit grainy I know. Still, hopefully you get the idea…
Drible da Foquinha
Drible is the same as the English dribble – to run with the ball. Foquinha means little seal. And what do seals do? They balance balls on their heads. Brazilian footballer Kerlon is credited with inventing this particular skill and let’s just say that it didn’t win him many friends on this occasion:
Caneta
Caneta means “pen”, but it is also used to describe the action of putting the ball through your opponent’s legs. In England we use the equally curious phrase “Nutmeg” (Portuguese: noz moscada) for this action.
Lambreta
Lambreta is a famous scooter manufacturer right? Well it’s also the trick we all love to try where you flick the ball with the back of your heel, up over your head and over your opponent. Normally it goes hopelessly wrong (speaking from personal experience here). But some people make it look easy:
Everyone loves to see skillful players do fancy tricks right? Well no, actually not everyone. As much as Brazilian wonderboy Neymar is amazing, I can’t help feeling that he kind of deserved what he got on this occasion:
OK, so I’m sorry for people who aren’t interested in football. Today’s post was a bit video heavy wasn’t it? Well bear with me, there’s just one more. In my last post I looked at the things that Brazilians associate with the British / English. Here’s a little taste of what the British associate with the Brazilians. Big surprise, it’s football. When a team in England is passing the ball around with ease and making the other team look terrible, a song is sung by the supporters to the tune of Blue Moon:
Tom,
existe um termo no futebolês do Brasil que eu acho super divertido que é : DRIBLE DA VACA. Mas não sei qual seria o termo equivalente em inglês!????
Você tem idéia do que eu estou falando?
Se souber como é chamado em inglês diga- me! Eu acho bem engraçado essa denominação para uma jogada de futebol!
Abs.
Oi, Rose!
Ha ha! Drible da Vaca é un nome bem engraçado! :) Vi que tem outro nome também – Meia Lua, mas eu gosto mais da vaca!
Eu sei a coisa, mas acho que não tem um nome oficial em inglês. Gostaria de chamar-lo “The cow dribble” rs ;)
I feel like an expert on the subject now!!
Cool post, thanks ;)
Good, because there will be a test later – you automatically fail if you call it ‘soccer’! ;)
Hahaha, I was gonna say, “good thing you’re English, because I doubt American English has good translations for these terms.”
Would you prefer to score this goal
or this one?
Whichever you pick I am sure this is how you’d like to be remembered.
http://tbbsportsjournalism.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/footballs-marmite-man-hangs-up-his-boots/
I don’t know whether to thank you for that first clip, or type something angry in CAPS about the second (painful) memory. Of course I’m heavily biased, but I think any footballer would be proud of that John Barnes goal (and to score it in Rio, against a full strength Brazil side – awesome!).
What can I say at Robbie Savage? I preferred his other nickname, Afghan Hound. Here’s why: Afghan Hound
Afghan Hound pic: LOL. Classic.
I’m sure you are already familiar with the alternative to “entre as canetas” which is “tomar um frango”, when the ball slips between the goalkeeper’s legs. It’s literally like trying to catch a chicken. That’s always a good mental picture! :)
Ha ha! I didn’t know that one Andrew – that is great!
Hahaha Cool thanks Tom and Andrew!
I knew them in Argentinean Spanish now i know them in Brazilian Portuguese. Perfect for the final as i think these two giants of football will face each other July 13th.