The L Word

These quotes are from an article in today's NY Times about losing at the World Cup. The Dutch seem to take losing particularly hard. Dare I say, almost comically so.

In 1950, Brazil, the host and favorite, lost in the final to Uruguay. The author Alex Bellos, in his book "Futebol: Soccer, the Brazilian Way," writes that the goalkeeper, Barbosa, "became the personification of the national tragedy." He died 50 years later, apparently unforgiven by his countrymen.

"Brazilians, to generalize awfully, are emotionally bipolar," Mr. Bellos said. "Everything is either the best in the world or the worst in the world. They have a superiority complex in terms of football, yet the flipside is a developing nation's crushing insecurity complex. When they win they forget their problems. They are the happy, party-loving. When they lose it reinforces a sense that they are useless and predestined towards failure — not just in football but in everything."

The Dutch are not known for public displays of emotion, but Holland's loss to West Germany in the 1974 World Cup Final is "burned into the Dutch psyche in the way that Dallas, 22 November, 1963 haunts America," David Winner writes in "Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football." There was open weeping. Mr. Winner cites a study of that loss that concluded, "The defeat of 1974 is the biggest trauma that happened to Holland in the 20th century apart from the floods of 1953 and World War II." He quotes a Dutch psychoanalyst: "There is still a deep, unresolved trauma about 1974. It's a very living pain, like an unpunished crime."

The Italians, who like the Dutch have had a series of improbable last-minute implosions, turn not so much operatic, as per stereotype, but somewhat paranoic, according to the new book "Calcio: A History of Italian Football" by John Foot. The referees punished Italy to favor the host South Korea — that was the chorus heard from Palermo to Milan in 2002. In 2004, the Danes colluded with those evil Swedes and played to a deliberate 2-2 draw that ousted the Italians, the dark thinking went.

The English, says the novelist Nick Hornby, " would rather pin blame on an individual on their own team, either a manager or player (David Beckham in 1998 for committing a silly foul in front of the referee; the goalie David Seaman in 2002 for misjudging Ronaldinho's blooping shot — or was that a pass?). But Mr. Hornby said, "It's been so long since England have won anything in soccer that it feels as though real contenders come from a parallel universe England can't seem to break their way in to."