کرنر

What it means

کرنر (korner) is a corner kick in football, the set piece awarded to the attacking team when a defender last touches the ball over the goal line. The kick is taken from the small arc on whichever corner the ball went out. In Iranian commentary you will hear کرنر گرفت (korner gereft, won a corner), کرنر زد (korner zad, took the corner), and ضربه کرنر (zarbe-ye korner, corner kick) for the formal phrasing.

How to use it

tup raft birun, korner shod.

The ball went out, and it became a corner.

توپ رفت بیرون، کرنر شد.

az korner gol zadan.

They scored from a corner.

از کرنر گل زدند.

In play

A korner is one of the most rehearsed moments in modern football. Tall defenders trot forward, the keeper barks instructions, and the curl of the ball decides whether anyone gets a head on it. Iranian fans count corners as a rough proxy for pressure; lots of korners usually means the attacking side is camped in the other half. Commentators will tally them out loud, and coaches will hold up fingers from the dugout to call set pieces by number.

A short corner (کرنر کوتاه, korner-e kutah) keeps possession by passing to a nearby teammate rather than crossing in, while a long corner aims for the head of the team’s tallest player at the near or far post. Both have their fans, and arguing which is better is a small genre of post-match talk shows on Iranian sports television.

Where the name comes from

کرنر is borrowed straight from the English corner, part of the same wave of football vocabulary that gave Persian پنالتی (penalti), داربی (darbi), and آفساید (afsayd, offside). The pronunciation in Persian flattens the English vowel: KOR-ner.

In our voice

You do not need a deep football vocabulary to enjoy a match in Persian. Korner, penalti, gol, and davar will carry you through ninety minutes with friends, and the rest you can learn from the shouting. Add a few of the players’ names and you can fake a full conversation by halftime.

References

• Vajehyab, کرنر
• Wiktionary, کرنر