20 June 2018 • Snap Italy

Sports terms: a glossary of the most practiced sports by Italians

«Here is the glossary of the 5 most practiced sports by the Italians: the technical terms that are most difficult to interpret, to show off a complete and captivating sporting language. Read on to learn about these tricky sports terms»

Sport, what a passion! In recent years, in Italy, interest in sports has increased exponentially. Moreover, we no longer limit ourselves to following our own team or our own discipline, but we are more open and curious about all sports realities. However, it often happens to come across the misunderstanding of the technical jargon, namely sports terms used by all those very knowledgeable commentators in the sport of competence. To cope with this feeling of estrangement we created for the occasion a short glossary of the 5 most popular sports by Italians, with the aim of dispelling any doubt about the sports terms of the most difficult interpretation that make up the sports language. In the top five of the sports most practiced by Italians (CONI statistics in “The numbers of sport” and “The numbers of sport in Italy”) we have: football, volleyball, basketball, tennis and swimming.

Let’s read together the sports terms of the disciplines most practiced by Italians.

Sports terms: Football

Aurelio : a type of dribbling in which the ball is rotated behind the support foot, bringing it back immediately afterwards in normal position.
Bicicletta : a type of dribbling performed whilst running, where the ball is raised allowing you to climb over the opponent with a lob.
Catenaccio : a tactical module that provides, with the defenders and midfielders, the maximum protection of their goal.
Fraseggio : a succession of short passes between the players of a team.
Melina : a tactic that aims to waste time and confuse opponents, consisting of an uninterrupted series of passages between teammates, without any offensive purpose.
Rabona : a movement in which the ball is hit by crossing the kicking foot behind the support foot.
Tackle : a contrast between two players for winning the ball.
Tiki-taka : game tactics based on ball possession.
Treble or Triplete : a very popular sports term, when a team wins the national championship in the same season and two seasonal cups.
Veronica : type of dribbling that is performed by making a turn on the ball by pivoting with the sole of the foot on the ball.

Sports terms: Volleyball

Ace : a service that falls directly to the ground in the opponent’s field or that touches a player of the opponent’s field before falling.
Battuta Flottante : a type of service that one makes with his feet on the ground or during a jump and that produces an unpredictable effect of the ball.
Doppia : a type of foul that is very difficult to sanction, in which the dribble is made by touching the ball first with one hand and then with the other, thus being considered two distinct touches.
Net : the net tape.
Pipe : a shot of the second-line band served by the dribbler who raises a ball straddling the three-meter line.
Rally Point System: a scoring system used in volleyball instead of the classic “ball change”.
Tie-break : the last set, namely the fifth, characterized by the limit score at 15 instead of 25 as in the other sets.
Video Check : a system of cameras, very similar to the football game, which allows each team to question the decisions decreed by the referees. Each team has the opportunity to resort to video check twice for each set.
Block-out or mano fuori: shot that is impressed on the ball in order to hit the hands of the opponent’s wall in the outer part, thus giving the ball a spin to exit.

Sports terms: Basketball

Alley-oop : widespread in the NBA, it’s considered one of the most spectacular actions of this sport, and it’s when a player makes a high pass and his teammate, in flight, grabs the ball and crushes it in the basket.
Bonus : each team has 4 fouls to spend before entering it. Once finished, at each foul, provided it is not offensive, the referee will sanction two free throws in favor of the team that suffered the foul.
Buzzer beater : the basket scored on the sound of the siren.
Fade-away : a type of shooting done whilst “moving away”, in which the player makes the shot moving away from the basket and throwing himself backwards, thus evading the opposing defense.
Flagrant: very serious foul also called “anti-sporting foul”.
Hack-a-Shaq : a strategy that consists in voluntarily committing a foul against the less able adversary player in free throws, in order to destabilize the team balance.
Mismatch : “one on one” situation, in which the attacker is faced with a superior opponent in physicality and athleticism.
Upset : victory of a low ranking team on a higher position.
Ventiquattrosecondista : a field official who takes care of the 24-second device, which sets the time limit for concluding an action.

Sports terms: Tennis

Grand Slam : direct point made with the service.
Smash : a high blow that is accomplished by intercepting the ball above the head and hitting it quickly.
Lob : very pronounced cut effect, which stops the ball.
Lift : effect given to the ball from bottom to top.
Ciop : very pronounced cutting effect that causes a stop of the ball, similar to the volleyball lob.
Slice : lateral rotation effect.
Hammer grip (continental) : a way of handling the racket used for the most powerful strokes and in services.
Eastern grip: a way of handling the racket used for the forehand.
Retrò: an effect in which the ball is cut and it comes back after the bounce.

Sports terms: Swimming

Crawl : an unofficial competitive style.
Nuoto di Fondo: distance races between 5000 and 15000 meters.
Indicatori di Virata : flags placed above the tank, useful in the back, to understand when you are exactly 5 meters from the edge.
Monopinna : equipment used in finned swimming with which you can only perform dolphin style.
Pull Boy : equipment used to increase the improvement of the upper limbs and floatation.
Virata : change of direction of the athlete at the end of the tank.
Svedesi : goggles without rubber around the lenses.
A secco: a type of training on land, to practice before or after training in the water.