A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
6:49
世界杯小组赛：哈兰德梅开二度萨尔两度追分，五球大战挪威三比二惊险力克塞内加尔提前出线
Haaland the Difference as Norway Survive a 3–2 Thriller Against Senegal
中高级中文听力：世界杯挪威三比二惊险力克塞内加尔全程回顾。哈兰德梅开二度，萨尔两度追分，五球大战悬念保持到补时最后一刻，挪威顶住猛攻提前出线。含进阶生词、语法与全文翻译。
This is an HSK 5-6 Chinese listening episode that runs about 7 minutes. The full Mandarin script is shown with tap-for-pinyin and a line-by-line English translation, so you can listen and read at once — comprehensible input in the sense of Stephen Krashen's i+1 theory. It teaches 7 key vocabulary words such as 享受、证明、传统 and walks through 3 grammar patterns, each explained in English with examples. The same news story is retold at 4 difficulty levels — use the level selector above to find the version that is challenging but still understandable for you.
Read the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.
Norway narrowly beat Senegal 3-2, a thrilling, gripping match full of suspense from start to finish, with goals pouring down like rain.
The two teams together scored five goals, the score on the pitch seesawing all the way, and the result not truly settling until the very last moment.
Before reviewing this match, let's first get to know the two teams.
Norway comes from Europe, and in their squad they have a superstar in the truest sense: Haaland.
Haaland is tall and physically strong, one of the most efficient forwards in world soccer today, with the ability to score in almost every match he plays.
Their opponent for this match, Senegal, comes from Africa — a blazingly fast, physically excellent, and quite tenacious team.
In recent years, Senegal has performed better and better on the major-tournament stage; they once went far at a World Cup, and are one of the representative teams of African soccer today.
Their squad also has quite a few fine players who play in Europe's top leagues.
So in this match, the two teams' overall strength was actually quite close, and before the match neither side dared declare it would surely win.
And precisely for this reason, this match was, before kickoff, seen by many fans as an evenly matched contest.
As the match began, Norway were the first to score.
Their player Pedersen seized a chance and scored, helping Norway take a one-to-zero lead.
Before long, the team's number-one star Haaland also stepped up and scored once more.
His goal showed his advantages in physique and positional sense to the fullest: inside the box, he always knows better than anyone how to find a chance.
Two to zero — Norway stretched the score further, and the Norway fans in the stands were jubilant.
A two-goal lead is, for any team, a rather good and favorable start.
However, Senegal did not throw themselves into disarray or panic at suddenly being two goals down.
Quite the opposite — with their own excellent speed and physical advantages, they began to attack Norway's goal again and again.
Soon, their player Sarr responded, scoring to pull the score back to two to one.
This goal was like a shot in the arm for Senegal, and made this match full of suspense again.
Everyone realized this match was actually far from as simple as it had looked before.
After entering the second half, Haaland once again showed his value as a world-class top striker.
He again seized a chance and scored, rewriting the score to three to one.
And this was already his second goal of the match.
This kind of scoring efficiency is exactly what makes a top striker most frightening.
A player scoring two goals in a row in the same match has a very vivid name in Chinese: "méi kāi èr dù" (a brace).
Haaland's brace proved to everyone once again his powerful, efficient scoring ability.
The 3-1 score made Norway look like they had already steadily taken the win in hand.
At this very moment, many may have already thought the match was pretty much over.
However, the truly thrilling stories on a soccer pitch often happen precisely at the final moments.
A tenacious Senegal never gave up from start to finish; they kept pushing more troops forward, striving for a chance to pull the score back.
And just as the match was about to end, Sarr stepped forward once more and scored again, completing his own brace, pulling the score to three to two.
This goal made the atmosphere of the whole match instantly tense to the extreme.
At this point, Norway led by a mere single goal, and Senegal, as if fired up, pushed everyone forward, desperate to draw level.
In those final minutes, the pitch became almost entirely a fierce Senegal attack.
Norway, for their part, dropped the whole team back into their own half, defending with all their might to guard their slender one-goal lead.
The fans in the stands had their hearts in their throats; each Senegal attack left Norway's goal looking fraught with danger.
Luckily, the time left for Senegal was, after all, running out.
In the end, Norway gritted their teeth and held off the opponent's frantic onslaught in the final stage, winning this heart-stopping match three to two.
For Norway, this was undoubtedly both a thoroughly nervy and an immensely important key victory.
With this win, Norway locked up a precious qualifying spot early, advancing smoothly from the group stage to the knockout phase.
For a team that isn't exactly a traditional powerhouse, qualifying early is already a rather fine achievement.
And their number-one star Haaland, with his outstanding brace, was without question the deserved biggest hero of this win.
Of course, Senegal, who lost the match, deserve people's respect too.
They fell behind twice and tenaciously pulled the score close twice, and that never-say-die, fight-to-the-end spirit won the heartfelt applause of countless neutral fans.
Sadly, in the end they were still a goal short, unable to snatch even a single point from a powerful Norway.
After the match, the discussion mostly centered on Haaland, and this brilliant goal-fest.
Some sincerely sighed that Haaland is simply so efficient, always stepping up at the most crucial moment.
Others felt for Senegal, believing they actually played no worse than Norway at all, and were just a touch unluckier.
Still others said it was precisely Senegal's tenacious chasing that made this match so brilliant, and from that angle, they were honorable in defeat.
In fact, this is exactly the most captivating thing about the game of soccer: a high-scoring, roller-coaster match is often more stirring, and lingers in the memory far longer, than an easy, breezy big win.
And for those who love watching soccer, getting to see, in one evening, a match like this — five goals, suspense held to the very last moment — is itself an enormous stroke of luck.
Alright, that's the whole story of the Norway versus Senegal match; see you next time.
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
考纲词. 看这样的比赛，本身就是一种享受。
HSK 1-4. to prove.
HSK 1-4. tradition.
HSK 1-4. stage.
非常紧张、吸引人。这是一场扣人心弦的比赛。
事情最终定下来。直到最后，胜负才尘埃落定。
自己慌了、乱了。有的球队一落后就自乱阵脚。
* beyond level超纲词
恰恰相反，…
'Quite the opposite, …' flips an expectation.
恰恰相反，他们凭借速度开始冲击对方球门。
或许都以为…，然而…
'Many may have assumed …, however …' sets up a reversal.
很多人或许都以为比赛结束了，然而精彩往往发生在最后。
往往比…更…
'Often more … than …' makes a comparative judgment.
跌宕起伏的比赛，往往比轻松的大胜更让人难忘。
Free account
Create a free account to keep saved words and your preferred level together.