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The Football Dictionary
Your comprehensive guide to football and soccer terminology, slang, and phrases used by fans and players worldwide.
A term used by rival fans to describe Manchester City in the wake of the guilty verdict of financial doping in 114 of 115 charges between 2009-2018. The term ‘sham contract’ was used in the verdict, a legal description from the 1960s. In this case, Manchester City are deemed to have used sham contracts to pump money into the club disguised as sponsorship deals, hugely inflating revenue to circumvent FFP rules. It meant they could throw money at the best players and the best manager of his generation (Pep Guardiola), winning countless titles, as a result. The punishment is yet to be dished out, but could be anything from titles stripped to expulsion from the Premier League.
The day the verdict was confirmed by the Premier League, reporter Rob Harris approached Manchester City CEO Ferran Soriano at the European Football Clubs board meeting. Amongst other things he asked Soriano if he would apologise to fans, and if this meant that City were not a sham club Sham FC was born as a nickname.
The international break is the time when club football around the world pauses and players are handed over to their respective international coaches for a period of two to three weeks at a time. Four times a year, countries play qualifying matches for confederation tournaments and the World Cup, alongside the Nations League and friendly matches. During international tournaments like the World Cup, Copa America, Euros and African Cup of Nations, players are with their countries for up to 6 weeks at a time. The international break is fantastic for national coaches and fans who love watching their country. For club managers, owners, and fans, it can be a long wait to see if players come back to the club game fit or injured.
This new International break at the start of the 26/27 season is so long! Most countries are playing 4 matches over 3 weeks, which is almost as long as the World Cup. I guess it’s now only two international breaks instead of three before Christmas though.
The 3rd competition in England, it involves the 92 clubs in the Football League. It is also known as the EFL Cup, and is currently called the Carabao Cup (the current sponsor). In the past it has been named the Milk Cup, Coca-Cola Cup, Carling Cup, Littlewoods Cup and Worthington Cup. This is all the clubs from the Premier League, Championship, League One and League Two. The competition begins in August, with the teams playing in European competition entering at the 3rd round stage. The competition runs through till late February/early March. There is no VAR until the semi-finals, and there is still the quirk of two-legged semi-finals, with home and away ties. The winner qualifies for the next season’s Europa League.
Liverpool hold the record for most wins in the League Cup, taking home the trophy 10 times. In recent years Manchester City have dominated, winning it 5 times during the Pep Guardiola era.
To 'Park the Bus' means to play an ultra-defensive style. Often used to describe teams lower down the table when they play the top sides, digging in and playing 5 or 6 players at the back in the lowest of low block tactics. It leaves little space between the lines for attackers to exploit and relies on an aggressive defensive mentality with bodies on the line to block shots, stop crosses, and nullify any attacking play from the opposition side.
'Park the Bus' first became a popular phrase after José Mourinho used it to describe Tottenham Hotspur after a 0-0 draw with his then Chelsea side in 2004. He complained that Tottenham had "brought the bus and left the bus in front of the goal". It would later be used as a positive term to describe well-drilled, defensive teams who got good results using the tactic, much like Mourinho's later teams. In fact, in 2010, after a brilliant defensive victory for Inter Milan against Barcelona, Mourinho joked that his side "hadn't just parked the bus, but has 'parked the plane' because they were reduced to 10 men".
The Premier League is the top division of English football. Founded in the 1992/93 season, replacing the old Football League, it consists of 20 teams with 3 teams relegated and replaced with 3 teams promoted from the Championship (the English second division) every season. The Premier League has become the biggest and most popular league in the world in the last twenty years, with a global audience of nearly 5 billion people across 212 territories, and a broadcasting deal worth just over £9 billion. The Premier League is where the best players play, the best managers ply their trade, and the fastest, most exciting football is played.
Manchester United are the most successful team in the Premier League era, winning the title 13 times.
The Community Shield (formerly the Charity Shield) is the English season curtain-raiser that is played between the winners of the Premier League and the FA Cup the previous season. If a team wins the double of both Premier League and FA Cup, the other team in the Community Shield will be the runners-up from the Premier League. It is traditionally played at Wembley Stadium, although in some seasons the game has been played in Cardiff and Leicester. The fixture exists in other countries as a Super Cup of some sort, and also in European competition as the European Super Cup (a match between the Champions League winners and the Europa League winners).
In the Premier League era only 8 teams have won the Community/Charity Shield and gone on to win the league that season.
A type of run-up that some players make when striking a penalty kick. Ronaldo perfected the stutter penalty. It offers greater control over the ball but loses out on the power of a long run-up, also playing mind games with the keeper, waiting until the last moment to strike the ball, hoping that the keeper dives first.
Did you see how many stutter penalties were missed In the 2026 World Cup? Even the very best players like Messi, Mbappé and Kane missed them. Just go and smash the ball as hard as possible!
The Spidercam is a camera system that is suspended above the playing field by cables. It allows television broadcasters to move the camera both horizontally and vertically with speed and precision to get some incredible action shots during football matches.
In the quarter-final of the 2026 World Cup between Norway and England, England’s equalising goal came after a Norwegian goal kick allegedly hit one of the Spidercam cables, dropping to the feet of England midfielder Eliott Anderson, who started the move that led to Jude Bellingham’s first goal in a 2-1 victory. Argentina had the Hand of God…
A super sub is a player that performs well when being brought on as a substitute rather than starting a game, usually scoring a late winning goal. There are plenty of examples of players who have been given the tag of ‘Super Sub’ because of how good they were at reading the match when sitting on the bench, then coming on and exploiting the weaknesses they had picked up on. A good manager knows who and when to substitute on to change a match.
During Manchester United’s treble-winning season of 1998/1999, Alex Ferguson was lucky enough to have four top-quality strikers to call upon. With Andrew Cole and Dwight Yorke mostly leading the line, he had two super subs to bring on late in matches, none more famously so than the Champions League final where Teddy Sheringham equalised in the 91st minute and Ole Gunnar Solskjær scored the improbable winner in the 93rd minute.
Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA since 2016. He has been heralded as a hero by many African and Asian football federations as he has been key to expanding the World Cup to 48 teams and growing funds for the game in parts of the world that previously felt left out. To European and South American eyes, Infantino has become synonymous with a corrupt FIFA, becoming the centre of attention rather than the administrator the FIFA president should be as head of a non-profit organisation.
Days prior to the opening match at the 2022 Qatar World Cup, Infantino gave an on-the-cuff press conference where he bizarrely claimed that “today I feel gay. Today I feel like a women. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel like a migrant worker”. This was in response to heavy criticism of the choice of Qatar as host due to the poor treatment and deaths of migrant workers in the country when building the stadiums for the World Cup, alongside worries for the LGBTQ+ community in a country where homosexuality is illegal.
The No Racism Gesture was implemented by FIFA to empower players, team officials, and referees to take a stand against racism when it occurs during a match, whether on the pitch or in the stands. If a person wants to alert the referee that racist abuse has taken place they cross their hands at the wrists, prompting the referee to start a three-step procedure, the last step being the suspension of the match.
At the 2026 World Cup at the end of a contentious match between Argentina and Egypt, where Egypt had felt hard done by, coach Hossam Hassan made the No Racism Gesture in front of the referee. Post-match, Hassan claimed the officials favoured the World Champions in the 3-2 victory for Argentina.
Under Article 27 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code (FDC), the FIFA Disciplinary Committee has the discretion to suspend disciplinary action that has been taken by a referee in a previous match. For example, a red card can be suspended, with a probationary period of anywhere up to four years. If the player in question commits another act of a similar nature within the defined suspension period, the sanction is reactivated alongside any additional disciplinary measures.
In the 2026 World Cup, Article 27 was quoted by FIFA when USA striker Folarin Balogun had his red card suspended in time for USA to face Belgium in the last-16. The controversy surrounded the alleged phone call from US President Donald Trump to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, asking him to remove the suspension so Balogun could play. He did, Balogun played, and USA got pumped 4-1 by Belgium, the hosts knocked out.
From the Blog
View all →06 Oct 2026
How to Retire from International Football: Messi v Ronaldo
Messi gets a celebration, Ronaldo is out through the back door. Is there a good way to retire from international football?
28 Sep 2026
The Impact of the Nations League on UEFA Countries
Is the Nations League a valid project that makes for competitive football matches during the international break or is it just a glorified friendly designed to make money.
22 Sep 2026
Is Possession Dead?
Tactical trends have shifted away from possession and towards set pieces and counter-attacking play in the past few years, is it here to stay? Is possession dead?