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Football (Soccer) vocabulary · Competitions & Results

Beat

Meaning in football (soccer), with examples

/biːt/verbCore term

In football (soccer), beat means: To win a match against another team. You beat a team, but you win a match, a game or a trophy.

In Turkish: yenmek, mağlup etmek

How it is used

Very common in results and headlines: "Kestrel Athletic beat Redhaven United 3-1." The past tense is beat and the past participle is beaten: "We haven't been beaten at home all season." To beat a player means to get past him with skill or pace.

Example sentences

  1. We beat them 2-0 last season, but they've improved a lot.

  2. He beat his marker and crossed for the winner.

Common collocations

  • beat a team 2-1
  • unbeaten run
  • beat the keeper
  • beat the offside trap
  • drawA result in which both teams finish the match with the same number of goals. As a verb, to draw means to finish level.
  • matchA game of football between two teams, normally made up of two 45-minute halves, with stoppage time added at the end of each half.
  • tableThe list that ranks the teams in a league by points, with goal difference and other figures; also called the league table or standings.
  • nilZero, used in British English when saying football scores aloud, as in two-nil for 2-0.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Competitions & Results

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