Football: How to Name Defeat Correctly

Toulouse -Paris SG: 3-6. Lorient-Lille: 1-7. The last day of Ligue 1 was marked by big wins, which were also heavy defeats. A score pronounces a very explicit numerical truth, but how to name it?

If the lexicon of victory is quite limited, that of defeat is both more abundant and more figurative, drawing on metaphors or slang, as if there were something exciting in rejoicing or mocking the vanquished, in pushing them down.

Sports journalism being hyperbolic, exaggeration is often the order of the day, and many expressions are misused. Yet, the vocabulary of football is rich enough to respect the varying degrees of defeat.

It is therefore time to establish a rigorous lexical scale of defeat, so as to no longer hear that a team has "crushed" its opponent 3-0.

You have 62.31% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.