This is, at a rough guess, a phenomenon that manifests very rarely outside soccer. José Mourinho has made a habit of disposing of any reminder he might have that he ever lost a major final. Second - close, but no cigar - can hurt most of all.Ī few weeks earlier, most of their counterparts at both Manchester City and Manchester United had conspicuously refused to don the tokens they had received after losing the Champions League and Europa League finals. And it always takes the pain a little while to subside. Often, it is with a lingering air of regret, a sense of what might have been. Occasionally, it might be with eyes glazed with tears. In most sports, the athlete or the team that finishes second sees its silver medal as a source of pride. That should not, of course, be especially noteworthy. And each of them had carefully placed it around his neck. Each of them had taken the medal offered to him. Each of the players had walked to the raised platform hastily constructed on the field after Sunday’s final at San Siro in Milan. In one, Luis Enrique, their coach, offers respectful applause for his team’s conquerors.īut in all of them, Spain’s players have thin, navy blue ribbons draped around their necks. In others, they give interviews, lead-faced and faintly forlorn. In some of the images, Spain’s players stare at the ground, disconsolate, chewing over their loss to France in the final of the Nations League. In all the photographs, there is one constant.