The close season - at least before they start jogging around cones and learning how to kick the ball to each other again in pre-season training - is supposed to be a quiet time for everyone in football.
However, if daily headlines are anything to go by, players and managers are busy vowing, pledging, admitting, blasting, forcing, insisting and remaining tight-lipped, all just weeks before the new Premier League season gets under way.
Headline writers have it tough - there’s no off-season for them. On paper, space is very much at a premium; online, there is the unwieldy beast of SEO to deal with. In both cases, there is a handy set of words and phrases, which nobody would ever have the shamelessness to say out loud, but which remain vital to the in-a-nutshell art of football headlines.
We begin with the oldest favourite of all.
ACE
The Oxford Dictionary defines an ace as “a person who excels at a particular sport or other activity”. The dictionary of football has a mind of its own, however, and the word “ace” has a subtly devastating function.
Essentially, if you find yourself being described as an “ace” in a newspaper headline, you should safely assume two things: 1) It does not guarantee that you excel at football, either now or in the past and 2) Something unpleasant has happened to you, either by accident or your own stupidity.
FRESH
In the summer of Transfer Stories That Simply Won’t Die, there is a thirst (or possibly a hunger, not sure which) for daily updates on various situations. These incremental, microscopic or frankly non-existent developments are routinely dressed up as “fresh”.
Nobody does something new or simply try something again, they do it “fresh”: fresh talks, fresh rows (although old feuds can be reignited), fresh blows (which implies a transfer bid that’s really struggling) and fresh allegations. It’s a classic example of a word that, if you look at it long enough, just seems a bit weird.
SPARKS
A very versatile footballing verb, which is used to convey the fact that something wasn’t happening and now very much is happening. Anything can be sparked: outrage, rows, brawls (anything over 13 men is sufficient), rumours and panic. Once something is sparked, it’s at automatic risk of petering out….unless something “fresh” happens.
VOW
A hardy stalwart of the football headline, if only because it can be squeezed in wherever it’s needed. Again, the dictionary definition is a “solemn promise”, but players and managers can be found to be vowing willy-nilly, especially during the transfer window when fresh starts (genuinely fresh, for once) are being undertaken by those wanting to kick-start their flagging careers.
In summary, though, if you even vaguely suggest that you might, possibly, do something in the future, it’s a VOW. Stick to your vows.
ADMITS
Much like the “vow”, the threshold for what constitutes an admission in football is set unashamedly low. Sometimes even the mere statement of fact can be described as “admitting”, which suggests the word is designed to make the individual look a bit weak and defensive.
JUST DAYS/HOURS/WEEKS
The emerging star of football headlines, and one that really reflects the times in which we now live. Whatever the context, the crucial word here is “just”, which suggests some sort of secret time-window before or after an event in which sportspeople may not enjoy themselves.
The most common and damning usage is the JUST HOURS BEFORE, the worst time to be caught doing something other than playing FIFA in your hotel room. The most in-vogue act to be caught doing just hours before something is smoking a shisha pipe.
Conversely, JUST HOURS AFTER places less emphasis on what the player is doing now, and is all about what they were doing previously.
In many cases, it really isn’t clear just how long a footballer should wait after Event X to begin engaging in Activity Y. It is generally accepted, however, that nobody should eat dinner until at least a week after the birth of their child.
The function of JUST DAYS/HOURS AFTER is clearly a judgmental one. However, these leading words are often deployed in slightly nonsensical situations: Anthony Joshua going for a walk, a football team flying home without enjoying the rich architecture of Rostov and, worst of all, someone driving a car less than a day after someone criticised them.
The advice seems to be: do not do anything. Unless you win.
AMID
“Amid” is the ultimate headline segue. It can’t be used for specific incidents (unless they unravel into a “row”) but for all-encompassing issues like an investigation, a rumour or an injury crisis. Generally speaking, it’s not ideal to be amid something, because it’s usually bad news.
PROBE
The FA have launched more probes this decade alone than NASA has in their entire history. Probes are often identified in advance - that is, someone “faces” one - before they are launched. Once the probe has finished its probing, then it’s time for the...
RAP
Once again, popular because of its diminutive stature, but the “rap” is a very specific term, relating to the often glacial disciplinary processes of the FA. Once a rap has been faced, the defendant is likely to be “hit” (a hefty fine) or “slapped” (a lengthy ban) with a sanction.
COY
The strangest one of all. Yes, it’s handily short for headline purposes, but why should “coy” become the default state of a player/manager who’s unwilling to comment on something? “Making a pretence of shyness or modesty which is intended to be alluring,” says the Oxford Dictionary, which perhaps lends a rather too poetic slant to Arsene Wenger being asked about Alexis Sanchez for the 18,309th time this summer.
