EVERYONE LOVES AN underdog or giant-killer.
But, as people often point out, these teams wouldn’t be ‘giant killers’ in the first place if they weren’t hopeless the other 99% of the time.
On Wednesday night, Wales bowed out of Euro 2016 following a 2-0 semi-final loss to Portugal.
Chris Coleman’s side deserve enormous credit — the last month has been unmatched in the history of Welsh football.
The Dragons beat a Belgian side that were far more individually talented — ‘Together Stronger’ was the team’s anthem, and so it proved on that unforgettable night in Lille.
However, as unpopular as it might be to point out, when it came to the biggest game in their history against Portugal in Lyon, Wales were poor.
As solid as Fernando Santos’ men were at the back and as brilliant as Ronaldo’s opening goal was, Roy Keane was right when he suggested on ITV that Wales would have “regrets” about their performance.
Despite having 56% of the possession, Coleman’s side managed just three shots on target in the whole 90 minutes.
In the first half, they were too cautious and it felt as if they were almost waiting for something to happen. After the two quick-fire Portugal goals early in the second half, panic set in, and there was an air of desperation and anxiety to their laboured attack play.
They had gone from the incredible high of defeating one of favourites for the competition, Belgium, to the low of losing to a decent-but-beatable Portugal side.
In sport, psychological defects are often blamed when an immensely talented side loses. For instance, speaking on RTÉ’s Today programme in 2014 following the Dubin GAA team’s surprise All-Ireland SFC semi-final defeat to Donegal, noted sports psychologist Enda McNulty suggested the favourites had been affected by the hype surrounding them and left complacent going into the game.
“We have to also take into account here the hype machine that was in place around the Dublin team over the past 24 months, maybe even 48 months,” McNulty said. “Everyone spoke (saying that) this was an unbeatable team.”
He continued: “I was part of the Ireland back-room staff when they played against the All Blacks [...] Even the All Blacks are fallible. So if the All Blacks are fallible, why then are the Dublin team not fallible?”
And similarly, if great sporting sides have mentally off days, surely average teams are prone to such tendencies too.
Which brings us back to Euro 2016 — for all the talk of this being the ‘year of the underdog,’ we are left with three teams in the competition who have tended to perform quite well on the international stage in recent times — Germany, France and Portugal, all of whom are traditionally strong footballing nations.
There were a variety of reasons why Wales fell flat all of a sudden against Portugal following the stunning display in the quarters against the Belgians — arguably the best team of the three in many respects.
Of course, the absence of important players in Aaron Ramsey and Ben Davies made a difference, as did fatigue and lack of big-game experience in comparison with the Portuguese players.
But consider another factor. By beating Belgium, Wales had already succeeded in a sense. They celebrated that victory like they’d won the Euros, which is certainly understandable to a degree, given their nation’s relatively unspectacular footballing history up until now.
Yet perhaps the wave of euphoria which greeted the Belgian result had a deeply negative impact on Coleman’s side. The media were already calling them ‘heroes’. It was as if the job was already done. Everything thereafter was a bonus, as they had already exceeded most people’s expectations of what they could achieve.
The same criticism could apply to Iceland. After the greatest result in their history, beating England 2-1 in the last-16, they delivered a decidedly limp and uncharacteristically inept display in the 5-2 quarter-final loss against hosts France.
People might argue that the England game was a one-off fluke, and France were simply the better team, but this Iceland side had also held Portugal in the group stages and beaten Netherlands in the qualifiers. Surely, like Wales in the semis, they underperformed to some degree in the quarters too.
And what of Ireland? The thrilling 1-0 win over Italy was followed by a deserved loss to Didier Deschamps’ men — regardless of the 2-1 outcome, the French could and perhaps should have scored three or four in Lyon that day.
And this trend of underwhelming failures occurring directly after shock successes doesn’t necessarily just apply to football. Think back to the last two Rugby World Cups — Ireland pulled off spectacular wins over Australia and France in the group stages in 2011 and 2015 respectively, only to lose in underwhelming fashion against Wales and Argentina in the quarter-finals on both occasions.
There are partial exceptions to this underdog rule, of course. Greece in Euro 2004? They were in a sense lucky that they suffered their dramatic low in the group stages, losing 2-1 to an average Russia side having surprisingly beaten Portugal and drawn with Spain.
Moreover, following the huge high of winning the Euros, a pretty dismal low followed for Otto Rehhagel’s much-admired team – they couldn’t even qualify for the 2006 World Cup, finishing fourth in their group behind Ukraine, Turkey and Denmark. Diito, Denmark, who triumphed in Euro ’92, but weren’t around for the ’94 World Cup, having failed to escape a qualifying group featuring Spain and Jack Charlton’s Ireland team.
This recurring phenomenon is the reason why so few people expect Leicester to win the Premier League in the coming season. It’s why at almost every major international tournament, the usual suspects are the ones who stick around until the end. And it’s what separates the truly great teams from the mere overachievers.
For countries such as Germany and France, anything other than outright success is treated by the media and supporters as an unequivocal failure. Immense pressure often brings out the best in athletes, as both these countries have shown of late.
Meanwhile, in nations such as Wales, Iceland and Ireland, failure is tolerated so long as it is accompanied by sporadic moments of hope and inspiration. This prevailing attitude is understandable given that these countries have vastly inferior resources to the big nations, but at the same time, it’s the antithesis of a winning mentality, a sort of handy excuse for losing that probably does the players in question no favours in the long run.
Therefore, sometimes in football, success doesn’t breed success — on the contrary, it ultimately creates a culture of coziness.
The42 is on Snapchat! Tap the button below on your phone to add!
