As I write, a number of sporting events are taking place – Wimbledon, the FIFA World Cup, the inaugural edition of the Nations Championship and more. I want to address a common situation; one that I have been seeing more than I usually do in sport. Whether it be because the sport is more intense due to the high stakes, or because the players themselves are genuine hot-heads, there seems to be a higher degree of unprofessionalism and opponent-directed frustration when it comes to defeat.
Examples of Hot-Headedness
When Arthur Fery and Zizou Bergs met on Court 18 in the RO32 at Wimbledon, Bergs’ final complaint to the umpire, while on his way to defeat, was that Fery kept “hitting the net and not saying sorry”. When Norway and Brazil faced off at the FIFA World Cup, Brazilian legend of the game Neymar Jr. decided it would be a good idea to taunt and push the Norwegian goalkeeper, during and after scoring a penalty.The issue was that Brazil were two goals down after a Haaland brace and the clock was already over the allotted stoppage time, meaning they had already lost the game. Norway had sent him home to end not only his last ever World Cup run, but also his international career. This obviously became apparent to him after the final whistle, as the camera cut to him being caressed and comforted by his fellow Brazilians in floods of tears.
This 2026 World Cup has seen allegations of cheating and match fixing from fans, which is to be expected, but it is not expected from the teams’ head coaches – they too have criticised officials and, indeed, other coaches, after their teams have crashed and burned. In writing this, I wanted to relate this back to my own experiences with defeat in sport, how I was pushed into learning to accept it gracefully (most of the time), and my thoughts on professional sportspersons who seemingly lack the ability to do so.
My Experience with Being a Loser
When I was a young(er) man, I played rugby. I had previously tried golf but grew too frustrated when I couldn’t shoot under par on my third round ever. I had no tennis courts near my house, and I was not, by any means, a strong swimmer. I found solace in rugby, it being a sport where to perform well you had to hold a ball and run. It wasn’t very complicated, though my (and others’) lack of appreciation for the underlying complexity of the game was maybe what led to perhaps the worst season of rugby that a group of spectating parents had ever been exposed to.
I had joined a team in Edinburgh when I was around 10 or 11 years old, and this team had a reputation for being one of the best in the country at every age group. Long story short, I was not good enough for this team. I ended up being chastised and bullied. Seeking a way out, I found that I was eligible to move down an age group as I had a February birthday. Jackpot, I thought. I was going to be one of the best players on this team!
Playing to Play
That turned out to be a problem. I was one of the best on the team, meaning almost every other player was worse than me. We went an entire season and a half without winning a game. When we did manage to score points, we hit the dressing rooms slightly less disgruntled. Our issue wasn’t the coaching or the club, it was mainly because there were only three or four of us in the 30-or-so-boy squad that actually played for the love of the game, and I was not one of them. It was without a doubt one of the most humiliating points of my life. That was, at least, until I started having fun. I started laughing when we conceded our eighth try, and ran back up to halfway, eager to get the ball and do something with it, or take a boy who was double my size down for him to drop the ball. I began to realise that it didn’t really matter. There was nothing at stake, nothing that would change as a result of the score besides what my father would say to me on the drive home.
I eventually left the team to go more local, and there I did start to love the game. I started to understand it, and therefore I played better. The lads who were playing because ‘their parents had told them to’ had grown a backbone by now, and so I was surrounded by people who also played to play. I even got my hands on some youth-level silverware.
I don’t play anymore, but my point is that as I got older, I started to realise that it wasn’t about the rugby, it was about the tenacity and resilience I had gained as a result of showing up every weekend to play in that team. You don’t realise it when you’re a tantrum throwing pre-teen that you’re building for the rest of your life in everything that you do, even if it’s getting throttled by 15 privately educated 12-year-olds with facial hair.
The Difference
Outbursts of anger after a loss are not what I expect from such tenured sportspeople. I am now reduced, as a sportsman, to a commuting cyclist and a sporadic visitor to my local gym, and I still feel as if I would do a better job of losing with dignity than Brazil’s finest produce.
I can think of many reasons for this. I am sitting in front my of television for 90 minutes, instead of playing one of the most important football games of my life. Another would be that perhaps with the riling of crowd and the other team (in Neymar Jr’s case, the goalkeeper was also playing his part), my cool, calm, and collected facade would turn to dust on the stage of a massive sporting event. Quite possible. But, there is a small space in my mind that thinks ‘Were these athletes simply just too good their whole lives to encounter an experience like mine? Were they never presented with the opportunity to learn how to lose properly… because they never did?’ It’s an interesting thought, if I do say so myself. I’m not going to be the one to do the study on it though.
Putting Things in Perspective
Now, there are many reasons a person, even outside of sport, could be a sore loser. Not enough attention from parents, too much attention from parents etc., but it is fun to speculate and pick apart legends of sport, who show up to the plate every day, from your two-seater in the living room.
I swear this is my last ‘but my point is…’, but my point is that I was very quick to judge Neymar Jr. and Zizou Bergs on their attitudes post-match, even after my experience, which I would call pretty extraordinary. I am closer to understanding quantum mechanics or rocket science than I am to knowing what it feels like to exit a World Cup for the last time ever, or crash out in the last 32 at Wimbledon to aplayer who wouldn’t even have been there if not for the wildcard system, and not know if you’ll ever make it there again. I see far too many people spreading their hate online, not only because they do not understand how it feels for these sportspeople, but because they will not even try. For them, I assume, it feels good to hate, much like the mentality of a playground bully, which leads me to believe that they, too, are sore losers. I believe if they were to go through what these sportspeople go through in cases such as those I previously discussed, their minds would simply explode.
