Moderate team primarily needing a goal to equalise? (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
tone down
'moderate' is the definition.
(I know that moderate can be written as tone down)
'team primarily needing a goal to equalise?' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'a' could be 'one' and 'one' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tone down that I've seen before include "Moderate" , "D to C, perhaps?" , "Make less harshly coloured" , "Make less harsh" , "Temper" .)