It's jaguar drinking-time in Brazil

Published on 09/06/2014 by David Birkett

Football is often described as an ‘international language’, but a fascinating BBC article delves into some of the flamboyant football vocabulary that is unique to individual countries. The Brazilian football commentators’ equivalent of those British phrases which designate a moment of truth, for example, used to be the dramatic: ‘a hora da onca beber agua’ – ‘the hour when the jaguar drinks water’. Those stalwart producers of compound nouns the Germans, meanwhile, designate a diving header by the word ‘flugkopfball’. Read the full article here and see below for our recommended World Cup books.