making favourites

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hi,
“So this group of fans are not making any favourites with the team and they are singing and wasting time preparing banners.”
–Did he mean ‘making the team any favors’? (Blank on ‘making favourites’ in the net.)

2

I think it would be better to say:

They are not making out that the team are (their) favourites …

3

I wonder if it could make another reading (= ‘they are not getting extremely popular with the players’ by doing what they do). A certain group of fans demanded the manager out from the moment he took over at the club making atmosphere there rather tense. So the Spaniard tried to win over the dressing room and the hierarchy by his remark…

4

Hi, I searched for this quote and think you may have an incorrect version - this is what I found:

“A group of fans, they are not doing any favors for the team when they are singing and wasting time preparing banners.”

This seems more clear.

lompocrecord.com/sports/socc … 6003a.html

5

I can swear I didn’t change a word (just copied the part of the text from the morning online edition of the BBC sports news). I’ve just found the interview in full. Now it looks edited (perhaps the Spaniard’s turn of phrase lifted more than one eyebrow…)
Thank you, Luschen.

6

While also revealing he has compiled a four year dossier of the striker’s alleged ‘diving’ antics.
What does diving antics mean here? (Benitez said this for Drogba in 2008).

7

You can listen to his actual words at 0:18 at

youtube.com/watch?v=GWBvUeLHwM8

He definitely says “they are not making any…”, then it is not completely clear if he says “favour to the team” or “favourite to the team”, but my guess is that he says “they are not making any favour to the team” (which is not correct English), intending to mean “they are not doing any favours to the team” (English is not Benitez’ first language, of course). Some editors have obviously corrected “making” to “doing” to try to make what he said read correctly in English.

8

In football, “diving” means deliberately falling to the ground when tackled in the hope of tricking the referee into thinking a foul was committed. “antics” has its normal dictionary meaning.