Brazil women’s team did not fail – 08/10/2023 – Na Corrida

The elimination of the women’s soccer team in the World Cup bothered me. As I’m not very quick – either on the race tracks or in thinking –, it took me a while to understand why. The result of the selection was very bad, it is not disputed, but that was not what disturbed me the most. There was something about the press coverage that didn’t sit well. After a few days, the penny dropped. What pissed me off the most wasn’t the tie against Jamaica, or Pia, or premature disqualification from such a special tournament.

What really pissed me off was the amount of times I read the word “failure”.

Here are some reports and analyzes about the women’s national team that had the word “failure” in the title.

• ‘Historic failure’: Elimination of Brazil in the Cup resonates in the international press (O Globo)
• Brazil is eliminated from the World Cup in another failure against Europeans in the quarterfinals (GE)
• Milly Lacombe: Brazil failed in the worst possible way; Pia looked like Tite (UOL)

These are some examples. There are dozens of others. Doubt? Do a search.

I have a problem with the word failure. It strikes me as too generic, too definitive, too binary. Or is it success, or is it failure? Cost to accept and resort to the dictionary. Unfortunately, Houaiss let me down. By definition, failure means “not to succeed; to fail, to be frustrated, to fail”.

Well, I allow myself the audacity to disagree with the father of donkeys when it comes to sport. For professional or amateur athletes, failure is an expression to be avoided.

Like this?

Let’s think together. Does it mean that those who are not champions fail? Only one wins, and all the others fail? Does the Brasileirão have 19 failed teams? Are marathon runners not named Kipchoge invariably losers? Remembering that Kip himself “failed” in the Boston marathon by finishing “only” in sixth place. Sorry for the exaggerated repetition of the same word, but I thought it was important to reinforce my point.

I give another example. At the time I write this text, Frances Tiafoe is the tenth best tennis player in the ATP world rankings. Being in the top 10 is an extraordinary feat. The quality of the North American is indisputable. At age 25, he is already a millionaire, adding more than 9 million dollars in prizes. In his career, he accumulates 167 wins and 155 losses. On average, doing a bakery account, for every victory he won there was a loss. In 8 years as a professional, he won “only” 3 titles. By the rule of sports chronicle, in all other dozens of tournaments, Tiafoe failed.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t consider Tiafoe a failure.

See, winning and losing are part of the sport. My annoyance with the use of the term failure is that it focuses exclusively on the result and disregards what I understand to be the most important thing: the process. Fall, get up, try again, and always seek to improve. This is the mantra that sport teaches us, and for many people it makes the burden of life more bearable. The term failure leaves no room for learning. It reduces everything to the win-loss binary outcome.

It’s not about passing the cloth to anyone, just trying to look at the process, in addition to the result.

Did the women’s team lose? Yes.

The women’s team was eliminated. He was.

The women’s team definitely didn’t fail.

Sport is not just about winning and losing. It’s much more than that.

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