When winning isn't everything!

A leadership and communication perspective.

England lost to Argentina last night. A last-gasp collapse, two goals in six minutes, the kind of ending that leaves a whole country staring at the ceiling. Funny really...I felt like I'd been there before!

Sixty years of hurt just got longer. And please don't ask me about when it really will be coming home?!

And yet the moment that stayed with me wasn't the scoreline. It was what came after. Thomas Tuchel, still raw from the result, stood in front of the cameras and said he had no regrets. Pundits begged to differ I hasten to add, but he went on to say...His team had given everything. It was maybe their best performance of the tournament. They just couldn't get it over the line.

No excuses. No blame. Just a man telling the truth about a group of players who left nothing out there.

That's not nothing. In a world where losing usually triggers an immediate hunt for someone to blame, choosing honesty over spin is its own small act of leadership.

So, it got me thinking about how much this World Cup has quietly been about more than who wins and how this might be of value to ponder over today.

Take Cape Verde. A tiny island nation, population under 600,000, most of their squad playing in the lower leagues of European football, turning up with nothing to lose. Their goalkeeper is 40 years old. He made a string of stunning saves against some of the best strikers on the planet, held Spain to a draw, and nearly knocked out Brazil. Nobody predicted any of it. Nobody will forget it either. And boy did we talk about it?

Or Japan. Win or lose, their fans stay behind after the final whistle to clean the stands they sat in. After the players finished a match against the Netherlands, they left the changing room spotless. Nobody asked them to. There's no trophy for tidiness. They just do it, every tournament, because it's who they are regardless of the result on the board. And boy did we talk about it?

Or the Norwegians...who must have had half the nation welcome back their heroes after defeat, having achieved what they never imagined was even a possibility. They were graceful, courageous and fun. And boy did we talk about it?

None of these stories show up in a highlights reel of great goals. But they're the ones that actually move you. A grown man admitting defeat with grace. An underdog goalkeeper making the impossible look routine. A team leaving a room cleaner than they found it after the worst night of their year. A nation united, ecstatic!

We spend so much energy chasing the win that we forget the win was never really the point. The point was always what the effort revealed about the people involved.

be remarkable - a final thought

I think that's worth remembering well beyond football. Especially right now, when so much of what we read about the world is designed to make us feel like everything is a zero-sum fight. Sometimes the most remarkable thing isn't who came out on top. It's how someone carried themselves when they didn't.

And so, on that note given "my" team didn't win, full credit to Argentina...they stared down the barrel of potential defeat and said NO, that's not what is happening here. The team galvanised, focused and played like a team possessed. They were possessed....with total belief.

So two questions to ponder...

Think of someone whose stock actually went up in your eyes after they lost or failed publicly. What did they do that earned that?

If effort and character were the only scoreboard anyone could see, how would your last month read?

Winning is brilliant. But it isn't everything. Sometimes losing well is the most remarkable thing in the room.