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Be honest: learning to lose is a lesson that never gets done. The things we talk about when we talk about losing are "losing is a tough lesson", or "learning to lose is one the hardest things to do." Well, words like that are the easiest things to do; and most people using them haven't switched off the truism autopilot long enough to have done any learning at all.

Yes, I support Man. Utd, and yes, yesterday we lost...

But no, I don't pretend that I've learnt some lesson; I don't pose with my hands on my hips and talk about how hard it was to get over, and how I accept it and it was a tough lesson, but you know what - I learnt it. That seems so condescending! What would I really be saying with that: actually I'm the real winner because I've gained something from loss, which as the nominal winner my opponent never can. And what would I be reasoning: there is more dignity in hardship than glory, therefore there's a truer glory found in loss than in victory. Instead of this pleading egoism; why not just say "I lost, but I want to win - even now." That's the only intellectually honest answer I think.

There's a case for dignity being found in hardship, from which the possibility of meaningful victory can follow in defeat. That's not a paradox as long as the material victory is proven subordinate to this suddenly proposed "true" one. But come on, does material victory not being the bottom line in sport really sound right? Sport is about the final score. Sport is like The Highlander - and as The Kurgan used to say: there can only be one. Then he got his head cleavered off; it doesn't matter if he deserved it or not.

I could approach this in a slightly different way and say claiming some greater victory from a loss (in sport) negates your own efforts in a childish way. After fighting for the best part of half a year through the Champions League, 11 men polarized in one intent: to never make a mistake, to never give up, to methodically knock competition out of the way one by one, and make your way to the final game, then win it - to propose that the sheer cumulative weight of all this effort and work, not to mention the driving dogma that powered it, is counter balanced, and in fact outweighed, with an idea like "the true glory is in loss and learning of unnamed lessons that are intrinsic in the experience" is... well, it's the voice of a cry baby who can't get what he wants - and has invented a metaphysical wet blanket for comfort. If the loss really was so valuable, so much battle wouldn't have been put up to avoid it. We should be badder losers.

So then, is it worth forever holding a grudge, never accepting defeat, shunning the party who bettered you, and swearing vendetta. I think that'd be close to the virtuous response, but obviously too insane to hold water. As above, the honest thought, at least for me, after losing is --I lost, but I want to win...even now-- and I think to avoid slipping into Nietzsche style macho man ethics, like those mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, tempering this thought with a little more humanity is the correct course. Just coming out with ersatz humility like "it was tough, but I learnt a valuable lesson" straight after losing leads nowhere. What ultimate lesson is learnt from loss? The only one I can think of is strategic: should have done this, made this and this mistake, mustn't do that next time, etc. There's no human lesson in there, where do "losing is a tough lesson" and "learning to lose is one of the hardest things to do" come from? I can't say, and I can't see the extrastrategic lesson either. Most of all though, I can't see the application of all this learning by the people who claim it. Watching them, it seems their lesson is that you have to say you learnt a lesson after a loss - it feels an empty gesture to me.

Two things are for sure though: losing sucks; and you're going to lose in your life. The strangest thing to say now is "get used to it." That would be contradictory: to get used to it would mean to reduce the suckiness, or the pain, of loss, maybe even to the point of non-register, certainly to the point of acquiescence; but we know, consciously or subconsciously, that losing sucks. It really does. So you're never really going to get used to it. What you get used to is that it's going to happen, and it's going to happen to you. That's a certainty worth being ready for, and perhaps this is where previous strategic recognitions taken from loss can help (to reduce losing results to their minimum frequency).

Well that's starting to sound a little more lesson like, but there's still no requirement for words such as tough or hardest things to do. There's nothing difficult in wanting to do better next time.

Until someone figures out a philosophical use in losing, I'm content for it to be metaphysically empty. I begrudge the winners their victory and wish, at their expense, I was in their shoes; but temper that with the thought that you have to call a loss for what it is. This is not a lesson, it's common natural sense. Nothing deeper can be derived. No matter how many times you try.