In a past life as a trader, I was taught rule number one, which I sadly failed to heed: ‘love your losers’. In effect, this equated to taking a bad trade on the chin, keeping your emotions in check and learning from them as there will be many more to come.

The reality is that what most of us young cocky upstarts did was to double up: to buy more and gamble further, in the vain hope that we weren’t wrong, thus magnifying and doubling, tripling and quadrupling losses until the inevitable ‘that’s your lot, clear your desk son’ call was made.

And yet we don't learn to love defeat, and Lord knows we’ve had enough practice, as the Three Lions' exploits showed. Granted, we were there: on the cusp of immortality and about to enjoy the mother of all parties (albeit with work the next day) as the boys got within a kick or two of nearly emulating Moore, Hurst and Charlton. The biting reality, however, is we are back to square one with the clock now reading 55 years and counting, as we continue to embrace failure with the gusto of a vegetarian tucking into a rare rump steak.

Racist abuse was aimed at Rashford, Sancho and Saka on social media after they missed penalties in the Euro 2020 final. Photos: PA

Racist abuse was aimed at Rashford, Sancho and Saka on social media after they missed penalties in the Euro 2020 final. Photos: PA

Immediately after the final whistle we turned to find fault. Some chose to direct their ire at the brave lads who stood up to be counted in front of more experienced pros, yet the writing was on the wall before the first spot kick had been dispatched. We screamed at the television to bring Rashford and Sancho on at the start of extra time and, much as we love Southgate, he showed his naïvity by entering these Daniels into the den, without as much as a kick, before thrusting the biggest moment of their careers upon them when they were stone cold and not in the game.

Rashford’s ridiculous run up had us wondering if we had accidentally sat on the controls and were now watching Monty Python's Ministry of Silly walks skit, before we witnessed poor Saka, a teenager with the eyes of the world on him and with the baggage of inexperience, being forced to come to the fore and, well, we know the rest.

Immediately, most didn’t take it with the dignity the event deserved. Southgate, alone amongst men, stood upright, stout and decent with gravitas, as he consoled his team and congratulated the Italians. Yet our players then made a big show of taking off their runners up medals, which is as disrespectful an act as is possible in a high stakes sporting arena. To enjoy the second-best result in our history is no mean feat, yet the players treated their spoils with disdain and disgust.

Large crowds gathered in a scuffle with police

Large crowds gathered in a scuffle with police

Then we had the inevitable trouble: Fights and scuffles broke out in and around Wembley without the boys in blue seemingly anywhere in sight. The same situation replicated in central London and across the UK as abhorrent tweets and comments were magnified, condemning us all, again, in the eyes of the world, as racist thugs who cannot take defeat with any semblance of grace. The truth is, as appalling as the abuse was, 99.99 per cent of the population fully supported Sancho, Rashford and Saka and did not aim fire at the colour of their skin. Channel 4 news reported that, out of 850,000 tweets sent during the Euros, 167 were deemed to be ‘high risk’ (aka racist) abuse, with most of this number emanating from countries outside of the UK. But again, we eat ourselves: the European press went to town as we were all demonised as knuckle dragging thugs, despite huge widespread support on social media for the young men who had the bottle to stand up and be counted. Virtue signallers jumped on the bandwagon, with axes to grind, mainly politicising Brexit again, as we English were attacked collectively as racist scrappers as most of us peeked through our hands, shook our heads and were silenced as we remonstrated that this really is a gross misrepresentation of us as a collective.

And so, the dust starts to settle we find ourselves back at reputation ground zero. We lost in the cruellest of circumstances, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles, and at least we get to trot out Baddiel and Skinner's musical masterpiece yet again next year. Sadly, an exceedingly small minority, whose actions have been magnified exponentially, have again cast our country as pantomime villains with a penchant for vulgarity and race baiting, and to me, they are one type of loser I will never learn to love.

  • Brett Ellis is a teacher