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2026 World Cup Language 13: Ends goal drought
It’s day 13 of the 2026 World Cup and Ronaldo finally arrived at the tournament. We look at a phrase that came from his match for Portugal against Uzbekistan after he scored twice: ends his goal drought. 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 doing well and enjoying the World Cup. I am still in Monterrey in Mexico where it has become a little cooler – maybe cooler than many parts of the UK which is having a heat wave – it’s really hot there! And yes, I am still recording this podcast beside lots of traffic so there might be some noise in the background!
It’s Day 14 of the World Cup and we have now seen every team play twice so we are starting to get an idea about which teams will qualify and which ones will be eliminated. Remember, eight third-placed teams will also qualify for the knock-out stages so there is a lot to play for.
Yesterday I watched England draw with Ghana 0-0 – a real bore draw. This of course means that the game was not so exciting and England could not break down the Ghanaian defence. I also watched a much better game later in the evening which was Colombia against DR Congo. The South American side won 1-0 but the Congolese almost snatched an equaliser at the end. But the main focus of today’s podcast comes from Portugal’s 5-0 win (a thrashing?) over Uzbekistan and in particular we are going to look at a phrase used to describe Ronaldo’s goals.
Stinger: You are listening to the Learn English Through Football Podcast.com (in Portuguese)
Ends goal drought
OK, so Portugal got their campaign back on track after thumping (easily beating) Uzbekistan 5-0. Their captain Ronaldo scored a brace and assisted another to silence some of the critics who felt he was too old to play at this level any more. Of course, Ronaldo was happy to score a double and to help Portugal move into a qualifying position in their group. But he had also not scored in ten previous tournament matches – that’s both the World Cup and the European Championship and so he managed to break his scoring drought. And this is how the Guardian newspaper reported on his performance:
Cristiano Ronaldo ends his goal drought as rampant Portugal outclass Uzbekistan (Guardian.co.uk, June 23 2026)
So, this headline refers to the fact that Ronaldo had not scored for a long time – in football we can say that a player is on a drought or a scoring drought if they had not scored a goal in a long time. Ronaldo had not scored in the previous ten matches so he was on a scoring drought. However, after he scored a brace against Uzbekistan we can say that he broke his drought or ended his drought.
Stinger: You are listening to the Learn English Through Football Podcast.com (in Uzbek)
Contact
DF: Yes, you are listening to the Learn English through Football podcast, or as we used to be known Languagecaster, and that message was from a fan from Uzbekistan. Now don’t forget, if you want to get in contact with us or ask a football-language question then just come along to our site or go to our World Cup forum or you can write to us at: contact@learnenglishthroughfootball.com. And while you are visiting our site you can also check out our glossary of football terms, expressions and clichés – we have hundreds of them – all about the beautiful game of football.
Goodbye
DF: Thank you everyone again for listening. On today’s World Cup language show, we looked at the phrase, ‘ends his goal drought’ after Ronaldo finally scored a goal after a long time without doing so. Can you think of any other words or expressions, in any language, that are similar to this phrase? If so, drop us a line and let us know.
Damon will be here again tomorrow with some more expressions from day 14 of the World Cup. Until then, bye bye.
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