"LOSER"
Click to view"Unfortunately, in every contest, there must be a loser."
The wise words of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective
It's coming. The beginning of the end. The quarter-finals of the Champions League competition are next week, and to state the ridiculously OBVIOUS, some teams will come out winners and some will come out losers.
I'm not a terribly competitive person. I actually believe lacking that intense desire to win at all cost is likely why I never went very far as an athlete. I was very athletic growing up. I always had the desire to work hard and to play hard, and had enough skill in my various sports (field hockey, soccer, gymnastics respectively) to be considered "good". But that desire to "win" the ball, "win" the event, and "win" the match was never my driving force. I simply wanted to play.
I went to a very small high school in one of the largest, most diverse counties in all of Northern Virginia. Some great athletes have come out of the ranks of my county... Grant Hill (basketball), Mia Hamm (soccer), Keith Lyle (American football) - (you may not have heard of him, but he played for the Rams several years ago, and I used to carpool with him to school, so I enjoy bringing him up) just to name a few. The high school I attended, however, was the smallest in the county, making us considerably less equipped to play the schools 2 and 3 times our size. As a result, I always played on a losing team. I don't have a single memory of winning a game.
I'm not sure I ever felt much like a loser though. That's probably because there was little expectation to be anything great. I was always on a team of "triers" that consistently fell short. We'd receive sympathetic pats on the back for having come out and "tried" with a good attitude. I can remember coming home from away games on the bus singing songs in the back seat, acting like we had won a championship, not like we had just lost yet another game. I feel for our coaches when I look back on that. In fact, I can specifically remember the looks of disapproval on some of their faces. We simply just didn't get it.
But I think I get it now.
I've grown very attached to my football teams, and to my players, and to some of my coaches. I've joined hands across cyberspace with other fans all around the world in anticipation of wins and in fear of losses. Last summer I experienced my deepest loss since following football when Germany lost to Italy in the semi-finals of the Euros. That loss hit me hard. I remember hanging around the pub I had watched in long after the other viewers had left. I needed to process, grieve, and eventually gain enough composure to drive the 30 minutes home. For days I walked around in a funk, disappointment hung around my neck like a weight. New images of defeated German players came out day after day, rubbing salt in the wound of our loss. I didn't want to consider my team losers. It's such an ugly word. There's a reason it's used as an insult. No one ever wants to be called one.
My favorite author, Pat Conroy, describes LOSS so perfectly in his book The Losing Season.
"Loss hurts and bleeds and aches. Loss is always ready to call out your name in the night. Loss follows you home and taunts you at the breakfast table, follows you to work in the morning. You have to make accommodations and broker deals to soften the rabbit punches that loss brings to your daily life. You have to take the word "loser" and add it to your résumé and walk around with it on your name tag as it hand-feeds you your own shit in dosages too large for even great beasts to swallow. The word 'loser' follows you, bird-dogs you, sniffs you out of whatever fields you hide in because you have to face things clearly and you cannot turn away from what is true." I desperately want Borussia Dortmund to win the Champions League this season. I'll be honest - based on their inability to progress beyond the group stage last season, I was prepared for them to lose early on, especially after drawing the "Group of Death". And like the days of my youth, I was ok with that. Certainly, I was excited to watch them "try", but my expectations were low. My heart wasn't necessarily going to be broken over an early exit. I'd been through it before with them. And it hadn't kept me from "singing on the bus ride home" or returning as a supporter this season. A supporter of a "trying" team.
"But there is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss. The great secret of athletics is that you can learn more from losing than winning. No coach can afford to preach such a doctrine, but our losing season served as both model and template of how a life can go wrong and fall apart in even the most inconceivable of places."
- Pat Conroy
But this season, the unexpected's happened. They've won. Round after round, leg after leg, competitor after competitor. They've made it past the group stage (top of the "group of death" I should add), past the Round of 16, and are now about to face Malaga in the quarter-finals. They've beaten powerhouse clubs the likes of Manchester City, Real Madrid, Ajax, and Shakhtar Donetsk. They haven't lost a match in the competition yet. This is no team of triers... but a team of winners. And man, does that feel good.
It feels so good.
As Mr. Conroy puts it:
"There is no downside to winning. It feels forever fabulous."
But it's not over yet. In fact, it feels like it's only just started. Expectations have increased exponentially. Dortmund's been called the "dark horse" of the tournament, even the "surprise favorites". If I were a superstitious person I'd be angry at people for saying such things, but I'm not. Instead, I'm incredibly proud. I'm proud of where they've been, where they are now, and where they're going.
And I believe they're going to the final.
And I believe they can win this thing.
Which means others near and dear to my heart will have to be the losers. Because unfortunately, in every contest, there must be a loser.
I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it.
Good luck boys. :)