The Oxford English Dictionary has added 15 football-related terms in its quarterly update ahead of the World Cup next month, with Sir Alex Ferguson's infamous "squeaky bum time" phrase among the newly recognised terms.
The former Manchester United manager first uttered the phrase back in 2003 in a press conference when discussing Arsenal's end to the season, suggesting that the Gunners would face lots of pressured situations to the conclusion of their campaign that they would have to cope with.
The OED description defines squeaky bum time thus: "A particularly tense period of time, especially one leading up to the climax of a competition or event."
Explaining its decision to add the 15 football terms, the OED stated: "There’s a World Cup kicking off in November, and while the OED already covered a large number of football terms, from 'catenaccio' to 'nutmeg' to 'water carrier', this select batch of fifteen additions fills a few gaps in our formation.
"There are new entries resulting from our Monitor Lexicography programme, where we review databases, corpora, social media, and even failed searches on oed.com, to analyse the language of the moment and ensure we're providing our readers with what they need. And we have a football-themed batch too, to help everyone get to grips with the necessary soccer-speak ahead of the World Cup later this year."
A phrase coined by Ferguson's managerial counterpart, Jose Mourinho, also makes the list, with "park the bus" included in the newest additions. Despite becoming synonymous with doing exactly that during his career, Mourinho actually first used the term in 2004 to criticise Tottenham for setting up defensively against his Chelsea side.
It is defined as: "To play in a very defensive way, typically by having the majority of outfield players close to their own goal and showing little attacking intent."
The full list of terminology includes: Cruyff turn, rabona, Panenka, total football, Gegenpressing, tiki-taka, park the bus, false nine, row Z, trequartista, zonal marking, squeaky bum time, top-scoring, outfield and over the top.
