[Grammar] A World Cup match which I watched live

I'd like to tell you about a World Cup match which I watched live at a stadium in London.

Can I use "live" as an adverb after the verb "watch" meaning that I was physically present at the stadium and watched that sports event?

And one more thing:
It was the World Cup semi-finals.

Is it correct?

If you watch something live, you normally watch it on TV as it is happening.

So it's better to skip "live" in my sentence.

When we talk about national teams, are both versions correct?
1. The Spain national football team.
2. The Spanish national football team.

And can we say:
1. The Spain team won.
2. The Spanish team won.

We normally say just 'Spain'.

5jj said:

If you watch something live, you normally watch it on TV as it is happening.

Click to expand...

:up: And if you were present at the match, you watched it 'in person'.

b

5jj said:

We normally say just 'Spain'.

Click to expand...

Spain won. They were very happy.

Is it a correct pronoun?

Could you tell me about the correctness of the sentences with "Spanish/Spain team"

We say:
It was held at a stadium in London.
or
It was held in a stadium in London.

angelene001 said:

Spain won. They were very happy.

Is it a correct pronoun?

Could you tell me about the correctness of the sentences with "Spanish/Spain team"

Click to expand...

'They were very happy' is correct.

As a side note, I've noticed that when they refer to a whole team, they use the plural: Manchester United were unhappy with the referee's decision.

As for the difference between "Spanish team" and "Spain team", consider these examples:

1) The Spanish team created more chances than the Italian (team).
2) They consider the Spain team the best team of the last decade.

There is a slight difference, I believe.

5jj said:

If you watch something live, you normally watch it on TV as it is happening.

Click to expand...

You can watch the French Open live this Saturday.

Reading this someone understands that I mean "watch on tv", right?

Is it possible to say:
You can watch a live French Open tournament this Saturday.

Can I skip "tournament" and just say:
You can watch live French Open this Saturday.

You can watch the French Open live this Saturday.

Sometimes you might need to search the Internet to get answers to your questions. Use the following pattern:

"French Open" site:uk
"French Open" site:us
"French Open" site:au
"French Open" site:nz
"French Open" site:ca

If you enter a string like that into the Google search box, you'll be presented with a number of sites run, respectively, in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada - the English speaking countries. I resort to this technique every time I have doubts about using a certain collocation. You can type "French Open" into the Google search box the way it's shown above to see whether the definite article has to be used.

Bennevis said:

'They were very happy' is correct.

As a side note, I've noticed that when they refer to a whole team, they use the plural: Manchester United were unhappy with the referee's decision.

:up: ... but 'very happy' is an unlikely choice of words. 'Over the moon' is the hyperbole of choice, especially with regard to that sort of football. (;-) They're never 'over the moon' at Twickers.)

As for the difference between "Spanish team" and "Spain team", consider these examples:

1) The Spanish team created more chances than the Italian (team).
2) They consider the Spain team the best team of the last decade.

There is a slight difference, I believe.

Click to expand...

Not so slight; there are hundreds of Spanish teams, but the Spain team (usually called 'Spain', as 5jj has already said) is a squad of about twenty - although in any one game there's only one 'starting line-up' -of 11.

PS to my earlier post: 'in person' is quite formal. Colloquially, you'd just use whichever person/number of 'go to' or 'be at' was appropriate. Among people who know, it's common to use the name of the ground. 'I'm going to Vicarage Road on Saturday' means I'm going to see Watford'; 'Griffin Park' used this way means 'Brentford', etc....

b

I'm in no position to challenge your expertise, dear BobK, but how sure are you 'very happy' is an unlikely choice of words?

Just entered "were very happy" site:uk in the Google search box and got 152 million results. I'm not saying I don't believe you. The fact of the matter is I didn't even think of "very happy" when writing that sentence. I was concerned with "they", rather. Can't we say "is/are/were very happy"?

Bennevis said:

Just entered "were very happy" site:uk in the Google search box and got 152 million results.

Click to expand...

Nobody doubts that 'were very happy is correct and natural - in many situations. I'm with Bob. If Spain won, we are not very likely to say they were very happy. It's not incorrect, and some people might say it, but we'd normally expect something more exuberant.

As far as Google is concerned, as we so often say here, Google results are no test of suitability, or even of correctness. I just typed in 'I ain't got no money', and got 53 million results.

Thank you for that clarification. I got it, BobK!

This is, truly, a great forum. Every day you come across something new. Would I have come across the expression 'over the moon' if the OP hadn't written 'They (the team that had just won the world's most prestigious soccer competition) were very happy'? Go figure!

I withdraw. The Google search "'very happy' + football :uk" yields well over 200M hits; "'over the moon' + football :uk" yields only just over 8M hits. In my defence, I just wanted to mention a well-known footballing cliché ;-)

b