lexis4u: Football Associations

Thematic Vocabulary Unit Nº 255 v.0.6

Main Definitions

Association Football |n| the official name of football/soccer.
club |n| a football team that plays in a league: examples of clubs are Manchester United in England and Real Madrid in Spain; often used to avoid confusion with a “team”, which typically connotes a national team.
Premier League |n| the highest football league competition in England, the biggest in the world with Serie A in Italy and La Liga in Spain.
Premiership |n| alternate term for the Premier League.
Mannschaft |n| nickname of the German national football squad.
Primera Division |n| The top division in the football league system of Spain, more popularly known as La Liga.
PFC |n| an abbreviation which stands for “professional football club”.
promotion |n| in many football-playing nations, the clubs are segregated into different “divisions”; the top levels are where the best teams play; a promotion simply means moving up from one division into a higher one; the opposite of promotion is relegation.
non-league football |n| in England, any club that does not play in the Football and Premier Leagues, the two highest football divisions of the country; called such because all top clubs formerly belonged to the Football League and so the rest were non-league.

AC :|n| an Italian abbreviation meaning “Associazione Calcio” or football association, a term used as a prefix for Italian football clubs (for example: AC Milan).
AFC: asian Football Confederation, the governing body of football in Asia; organizer of the AFC Champions League, the biggest club competition in Asia.
AYSO: American Youth Soccer Organization, a non-profit group in the United States which provides nationwide training and development to children between 4 to 19 years of age
AS: associazione sportive in Italian or association sportive in French, literally translates as sporting association; a common prefix for European football clubs (for example A.S. Roma, A.S. Cannes).
Bundesliga: the highest division in Germany’s football league system.
CAF: Confederation of African Football, the highest governing body of football in the continent of Africa; equivalent to the UEFA in Europe and the CONMEBOL in South America.
CONCACAF: stands for Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football: the governing body of football for South and Central America and the Caribbean.
CONMEBOL: stands for Confederação Sul-Americana de Futebol: the governing body of football in the South American continents.
Professional Footballers Association: The association of professional soccer players in England and Wales.

APSL: a defunct professional men’s soccer league which featured teams from the United States and Canada.
ASL: American Soccer League, is the first professional soccer league in the United States; it operated from 1921 until 1933.

second season syndrome |n| the tendency of a club to perform poorly two seasons after it is promoted to the highest division.
yo-yo club |n| a club that is constantly relegated and promoted; examples of these are Sunderland and West Bromwich Albion, dubbed such because they go up and down English football divisions like yo-yoss.
Barça |n| a short reference for FC Barcelona, one of the most popular football clubs in Spain.