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2026 World Cup Language Podcast 5: Held to a draw
Day five of the 2026 World Cup was a day of draws as all four games ended in draws. We look at the phrase ‘held to a draw‘ from one of those games: Cape Verde against Spain. You can read the transcript for this podcast below, while you can also check out our glossary of footballing phrases here and visit our site to access all our previous posts and podcasts. If you have any suggestions or questions about the phrase or our podcast then you can contact us here.
Hello
DF: Hello everyone. This is Damian from the Learn English through Football team and I hope you are all well and enjoying the World Cup. This is the fifth podcast in our series of World Cup language in which we look at a different phrase from the tournament every day. Damon explained the phrase ‘run riot’ yesterday after Germany’s 7-1 win, for example. And today we look at an expression from one of the first big shocks of the tournament.
Stinger: You are listening to the Learn English Through Football Podcast.com (in Swedish)
So, we are on day five of the 2026 World Cup and it was a day of shocks and draws. There were four matches and all four games ended in draws – so, no team won and all teams now have one point. Egypt and Belgium played out an exciting 1-1 draw, while New Zealand and Iran’s match was even more exciting with the Iranians equalising on two occasions. Uruguay came from behind to draw 1-1 with Saudi Arabia in a game I think they should have won after all the chances they created. But the biggest story of the day ended goalless – no goals but lots of talking points as Cape Verde drew 0-0 with Spain.
Stinger: You are listening to the Learn English Through Football Podcast.com (in Spanish)
DF: Yes, you are listening to the Learn English through Football podcast, or as we used to be known Languagecaster, and that message was in Spanish. And I know that he is not happy at all with the nil-nil draw between Spain and Cape Verde yesterday.
Held to a draw
Debutants Cape Verde produced one of the biggest World Cup shocks of recent times by holding Spain to a goalless draw in Atlanta. (BBC.co.uk, June 15 2026)
And this is how the BBC reported on the game yesterday. They described Cape Verde as ‘debutants‘ so, of course means that they were playing in their first ever World Cup tournament. And they also used the phrase, holding Spain to a goalless draw. Now, this means that the Cape Verde side drew with the Spanish team but it also suggests that not only did they prevent or stop Spain from winning (or scoring) but that they were not really expected to get this result.
So, holding another team to a draw suggests that one side is stronger than the other and should win the game; but the other team doesn’t allow them to do that and they draw the game instead. To hold a team, then, suggests that one team has stopped another team from winning (or maybe scoring a lot of goals). And it suggests that one team has performed better than expected; maybe a really brave performance to earn a draw, much like Cape Verde did yesterday.
Here’s another example of a headline about yesterday’s game – this time from ESPN:
Spain, one of the pre-tournament favourites to win the World Cup, were held to a 0-0 draw by 67th-ranked Cape Verde on Monday in the first major shock of the group stage (ESPN.co.uk, June 15 2026)
This time the verb phrase has the passive voice – were held – because the focus is on Spain; they appear first in the sentence to highlight that. The sentence suggests that they should have beaten the Cape Verde side but instead were held to a nil-nil draw.
And Damon will be back tomorrow with some more expressions from day 6 of the World Cup. Until then, bye bye.
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