About the beautiful game / Dave Farrar / 15 April 2009 / Leave a comment

Dave Farrar talks to us about playing and on this occasion, losing, gracefully at sport - as best illustrated by the post-tournament comments of US masters runner-up Kenny Perry. And a concept clearly lost on the likes of Jose Mourinho...

In the end, then, it did turn out to be a week for the outsiders in the US Masters, and to see three players who had all traded at hefty three figure prices contest a play-off brought a great deal of joy to all of us who like that kind of thing, whether we'd backed them or not. The real message from Augusta, though, was a lesson in how to lose. The chief memory for all of us who watched that incredible final round unfold won't be Angel Cabrera tapping in his anticlimactic winning putt, or Tiger and Phil going head to head, but of Kenny Perry losing in one of the most gracious ways that I have ever seen.

Perry's applause when Cabrera holed out on the first play off hole was one thing, but his interview after he had thrown the tournament away was quite another. When asked the usual nonsense about how will he ever recover and whether he can ever contend again, his response was simple and classy: "If this is the worst thing that ever happens in my life, then my life must be pretty good." In that one sentence, he brought context and clarity to the event, and gave us a mantra that we ought to remember for the rest of our sporting and our gambling year.

In the overblown world of football we're constantly told that winning is everything, that second is nowhere, and that anyone who thinks otherwise mustn't "want it enough." We just about excuse the behaviour of managers like Jose Mourinho, which would be deemed scandalous in any other workplace, because Mourinho is a winner, and that's how winners behave. They don't accept defeat, they hurt and they crave the chance to put things right. It's the increasingly surly attitude of Tiger Woods contrasted with Perry, and I know which I prefer. Now Mourinho's Inter Milan side is trading at [1.04] to win Serie A, and they clearly will end up with yet another Scudetto, but he's likely to be putting things right at another club next season.

Another lucrative contract, another country's media to charm, another set of sporting rules to break. But why do we buy into the line that winning is everything and that those who win more than they lose must do so with their game face and without a great deal of class? Why, in football in particular, is it so hard to get a result with a smile on your face and still have some class if things don't go your way? As fans and human beings, we should be entitled to expect a bit more.

I enjoyed Guus Hiddink's interview after Chelsea had put Liverpool out of the Champions League. Speaking to Gabriel Clarke straight after the match he said: "If I'm being honest, and why not, I was angry, I was furious, I shouted at half time." The key words in that sentence are "and why not", Hiddink's acknowledgement that it's actually pretty rare to be honest in a post match football interview. It made me like him a little more, and even made me think that it wouldn't be such a bad thing if Chelsea do win the Champions League at [4.5], much though I love Barcelona.

And as punters too we have to learn to be good losers: provided that you have backed your judgement and that you get more right than you get wrong, you'll be in some sort of profit, and you've got to take the hits, and enjoy the good days. I was in a bookmakers (terrible value, not user friendly, but I was shopping and they had the race on) in Richmond on Monday watching the Irish Grand National, and when Niche Market led two other long shots home, the mild mannered looking character in front of me stood up, dramatically threw his ticket down, railed against the world and, more specifically against a 100-1 winner in the National, a 33-1 winner in the Irish National, and told anyone who'd listen that it was terrible for racing and that he'd done a week's wages on the two races. What's the problem with that story? Racing, for being unpredictable, or him, for risking a week's wages on two long distance handicaps?

So next time someone misses a penalty late on and costs you your money, try to remember Kenny Perry: in a still forming market, Kenny Perry is trading at [55.0] to win the US PGA, and [50.0] to win the US Open. He'll start both events much bigger than that, and I won't complain if he finally gets the chance to be a good winner, as well as a memorably good loser.