"muck things up" is a correct and usable phrase in English.
It is used to describe making a situation worse or more complicated than it needs to be. For example, "I was trying to figure out the paperwork, but I ended up mucking things up even more."
You can't win the tournament on day 1, but it is possible to seriously muck things up if you get things wrong.
"If a bunch of cowardly moderates take over...all we can hope for... is that they don't muck things up further.
England can win its group in Euro 2012 qualifying with a win at Montenegro in its final qualifier, but a loss there could really muck things up for them.
But when he does, he will speak for all EU institutions.In general, the ratifiers are willing to offer solutions to the naysayers' more specific problems, as long as these do not muck things up for others.
Hazans cooking expresses eloquently the reason so many Americans come home from Italy and search in vain for the sort of food they had over there: the Italians dont muck things up with a bunch of stuff.
The question that nags him isn't so much how to reason through the grand mystery of human relations — "I don't own anything, you don't know shit," he sings on "Sallisaw Blue," dispensing with the idea of a neat resolution — but how to make peace with the fact that people usually muck things up in the end.
And because his predecessor mucked things up so royally, President Obama's job is ridiculously hard.
You probably know the basics, because we've seen this sort of thing with other companies that have mucked things up in the past.
Librarians would prefer it if libraries had no people in them mucking things up; then they could just walk along the aisles alphabetising everything and dusting book spines.
"I suppose a mainstream analyst for one of the two major parties would say we are mucking things up," said Daniel Cantor, the executive director of the Working Families Party.
"I'm not here to defend the indefensible, the church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those, but the church has in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down.
