Where Were They Held?
Match famous sporting events to the host country or city in a free timed browser game. Olympics, World Cup, Wimbledon and more.
SportsSports Words
Sport has its own compact vocabulary, and commentary leans on it hard. Below: the terms that appear in every match report, explained plainly.
Choose your difficulty
Pick a level to start playing. You can switch at any time.
How to play
Read the term, then tap what it means.
Tip: your progress and best score are saved in this browser only.
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Sports commentary runs on a small set of words that carry precise rules. "Offside" is not a rough idea but a legal definition, and "hat trick" is a fixed count rather than an exaggeration. Learning them as definitions instead of loose associations is what makes these questions answerable.
The second skill is recognising which sport a word belongs to. Several of these terms come from one sport only, and mixing them up is the usual reason a reader hesitates.
How the game works
Each question shows a piece of sports vocabulary and four possible meanings. Tap the correct one. A wrong pick shows the answer at once.
Easy covers the terms you will meet in any match report. Medium adds the ones specific to individual sports. Hard uses the full list, including older or more technical phrases.
The links worth knowing
Football: offside means the attacker is nearer the goal line than both the ball and the second-last defender. A penalty kick is a free shot from the penalty spot. A clean sheet means no goals conceded. A hat trick is three goals in one match for one player, and in other sports three points or three strikes of the same kind.
Tennis: a tie-break is the short deciding game when sets are level. An underarm serve is struck below the waist.
Racing: a split second is a very short interval of time. A marathon is 42.195 kilometres, not 42.
General: a knockout stage is the round in which a loss ends the run. Home advantage means playing at your own ground. A golden goal settles a drawn knockout match with the extra-time goal that decides it. A set piece is a restart from a fixed position, such as a corner, a free kick or a throw-in. A warm-up is the preparation before play, and a captain wears the armband.
How to get faster
Write the definition, not the association. If you can state "a clean sheet means no goals conceded" in a full sentence, you will not confuse it with "a match won by three goals". The words that get confused are usually the ones only ever half-understood.
A note on regional usage
Some of these terms are used more widely in one country than another. The definitions here follow the rules as they are actually applied in international competition, which is the version most likely to match a match report.