There are some football phrases that are so ubiquitous that you’d absolutely be well within your rights to just assume that you know what they mean, such is the extent to which you will have heard them repeatedly during your life.
‘A game of two halves’ is definitely one of those, to say nothing of the fact that it somehow feels as though you just intrinsically know what it means without needing it explained.
Of course, that is where that old saying about ‘don’t assume because it makes an ass out of u and me’ comes into play, so it is absolutely worth explaining it in a bit more detail to see if it means exactly what you thought it meant.
A Match That Changes Dramatically
The truth about football is that the majority of games tend to go precisely the way you expect them to. From ‘cup shocks’ to league matches that are put first on Match of the Day for reasons of shock and drama, the games that tend to go against the run of play stand out like a sore thumb precisely because the rest are so predictable. In the Premier League alone, there are 380 matches played across the course of the season, yet when the campaign comes to an end we can probably count on one hand those that played out in an unexpected way. With that in mind, things that are a little bit more unusual are noteworthy.
@footballtalktimms a games of two halves and 24 penalties brilliant game of football between Grimsby and Manchester United #footballfan #fyp #eflcup #manchesterunitedfc #grimsbytown ♬ original sound – FTT
That is even more the case when it comes to the individual matches themselves, where you’ll see that a first-half playing out in one manner results in everyone expecting the second-half to do the same. When one half sees one team dominate and the second-half produces a display in which the opposition is on top, you will often hear a commentator pull out the old cliché that it has been a ‘game of two halves’. What that means, in its most simple form, is that it looked as if it was going one way during the first 45 minutes, only for the second period to produce an entirely different result from the one that had been predicted at half-time.
Perhaps one of the best examples of that is the Champions League final from 2005. Liverpool were playing against AC Milan, with the Italian giants taking a 3-0 lead into the break. In Italy, champagne corks popped as everyone assumed the tie was done and dusted. In the second-half, however, three goals in six minutes put the Merseyside club back in the game, taking it to penalties before eventually winning the trophy for the fifth time in the club’s history. It was the definition of a game of two halves, being referred to forevermore as the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’. Most games of two halves are a lot more pedestrian, but no less fun for the winners.