[Grammar] the one team

[vaibhavmaskar]

1. We're going to have to play the one team we did not want to play.

• We're going to have to play but we did not want to play with them (the one team). Is this a similar meaning with above sentence?

 

[5jj]

Partly. Your version misses the idea of that team being the only team you did not want to play.

 

[SoothingDave]

What is the context?

To me "we did not want to play them" is probably talking about matchups. Not so much that they simply do not want to play a certain team, but that they feel that they match up poorly.

Oftentimes in tournaments/playoffs there can be a team that you know you match up poorly against. But if some other team in the playoffs beats that team, you know you can beat anyone else.

In the early 2000s, the Steelers could not beat the Patriots in the playoffs. The Steelers won the Super Bowl the year that the Colts beat the Patriots and then the Steelers beat the Colts. Had we faced the Patriots again we may have not gone to the Super Bowl.

In the 1970s, the Houston Oilers never made the Super Bowl because they had to play the Steelers. Had someone else beaten the Steelers in those playoffs, the Oilers would have likely been Super Bowl champions.

 

[vaibhavmaskar]

What is the context?

the only person or thing of a particular type the one:

She found herself in the one spot that gave her no shelter from the rain.

We're going to have to play the one team we did not want to play. (definition of word "one", online macmillan dictionary)