Teams getting clean critical remark (9)
I believe the answer is:
sideswipe
'critical remark' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are verbs in their base form, I don't see how one could define the other.
'teams getting clean' is the wordplay.
'teams' becomes 'sides' (eg football sides).
'getting' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'clean' becomes 'wipe' (wipe can mean to clean something down).
'sides'+'wipe'='SIDESWIPE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for sideswipe that I've seen before include "Passing critical comment" , "hardly a terrible blow!" , "indirect strike action" , "critical, incidentally" , "jibe when passing" .)