Introduction
“It’s not your fault; the game is too difficult.” As a child, I often heard those words around a table football table. All it took was a match that had gone badly, perhaps with a fairly clear difference in the score, and the winner might say them to the loser.
Of course, nobody really took them literally. The game had not suddenly become more difficult for one of the two players. The table was the same, the rods were the same, the ball was the same. There was clearly irony behind those words.
It was a way of saying: “Don’t worry, it isn’t that you’re no good: it’s the game that’s too difficult.” And precisely because everyone understood the hidden meaning, the remark could sting even more than a straightforward: “You lost.”
But thinking about it many years later, I realise that this childhood joke contains something more interesting than it first appeared to. Because it is not so easy to establish whether it served only to mock the loser or, at least in part, also to spare them humiliation.
A very particular kind of teasing
The form of the remark is curious. Someone who wants to mock another person usually blames them directly for losing: “You’re useless”, “You don’t know how to play”, “I destroyed you.” Here, exactly the opposite happens.
The loser is relieved of responsibility: “It’s not your fault.” And responsibility is assigned to something external: “The game is too difficult.” Naturally, it is precisely this exaggeration that creates the irony.
It is as though the winner were saying: “To explain just how badly you played, I even have to pretend that the problem is the game.” So the remark remains a taunt, but a softened, indirect one.
It does not attack the person head-on. It does not say: “You’re worthless.” Instead, it says: “The task was too difficult.” And perhaps that is why a remark like this could pass easily between children who, a few minutes later, would start another match. As I remember it, there was teasing, but it rarely left a wound.
Table football as a small school for life
Childhood games are often much more important than we imagine. Around a table football table, we learnt some fundamental rules of getting along with others, without lessons or explanations.
We learnt to win. But above all, we learnt to lose. We learnt that someone might be better than we were. That we could try hard and still lose. That we could be certain of winning and instead concede five goals. That we could even lose because the ball took a ridiculous deflection.
And above all, we learnt that life continued after a defeat. The match ended. We teased one another a little. Then perhaps we changed partners and started again.
It was a small social laboratory. Defeat was not turned into a final judgement on the person. You had lost a match. You were not a loser. That distinction seems obvious, but it is anything but trivial.
Losing without feeling diminished
There is an enormous difference between saying: “You lost” and saying: “You’re a loser.” The first describes a fact. The second turns an event into an identity.
A person can lose a match without being incapable. They can do badly in an exam without being stupid. They can fail at a project without being a failure. They can make a mistake without being a wrong or worthless person.
Perhaps that old table football remark, through its very irony, unknowingly contained this distinction. “It’s not your fault; the game is too difficult.” Behind the joke, there almost seems to be a message: “You lost, but let’s not turn it into a tragedy.” And this ability to keep a defeat in proportion is precious.
Irony as protection
Irony always has a double nature. It can hurt, but it can also protect. Everything depends on the relationship between the people involved, the tone, the moment and, above all, a sense of proportion.
Between friends, a joke can make it possible to acknowledge a defeat without turning it into humiliation. Instead of seriously analysing who is better, who made mistakes and who is superior, we turn it all into a laugh: “It isn’t you: the game is too difficult.” We laugh. The tension disappears.
Naturally, there is a limit. If the same remark is repeated constantly against the same person, if it is used to display their lack of ability in public, or if it is spoken with malice, then it stops being a joke and becomes humiliation.
But where there is friendship and reciprocity, teasing can even have a social function. Today I tease you because you lost. Tomorrow I will lose, and it will be my turn to hear a few remarks. Taking turns makes the joke bearable. Nobody permanently occupies the winner’s place.
A society that struggles to accept defeat
That small childhood experience suggests a wider reflection. Today, we often tend to protect people from frustration. The intention is understandable. Nobody wants to make a child feel small.
But there is a difference between preventing humiliation and preventing every experience of defeat. The first is right. The second can be dangerous. Because sooner or later, in life, we lose.
We lose a race. Someone gets ahead of us in a selection process. Somebody earns a better mark than we do. A project does not work out. Someone we love chooses another person. A job interview goes badly. An idea we believed in turns out to be wrong.
We cannot build a society in which nobody loses. But we can build a society in which losing does not mean being humiliated. It is a fundamental distinction.
The problem is not losing, but being treated with contempt
A child can learn to cope with defeat. What hurts is not necessarily the result. It is contempt.
If, after a match, we say: “You lost 10–2”, we are describing what happened. If we say: “You’re completely hopeless; you’ll never manage to do anything”, we are doing something entirely different.
We are moving from behaviour to the person. From the result to their worth as a human being. And that is where humiliation begins.
Gentle teasing can even prevent this shift, because it keeps everything within the territory of play. “It’s not your fault; the game is too difficult.” It contains no final verdict. It does not say: “That’s the kind of person you are.” It implicitly says: “That’s how it went this time.” Tomorrow we start again.
The excuses we invent as adults
The remark can also be read from another point of view. As adults, we often continue to say: “It’s not my fault.” Only we are no longer joking.
We attribute our failures to work, society, luck, our boss, colleagues, family, bureaucracy or bad timing. Sometimes we are right. Circumstances really do matter. But at other times, we use circumstances to avoid acknowledging our own responsibility.
And then the old table football remark takes on an almost philosophical meaning: “It’s not your fault; the game is too difficult.” How often do we say this to ourselves? When it would be more useful to acknowledge: “I made a mistake”, “I wasn’t prepared enough”, “I misjudged the situation”, “The other person was better.”
Accepting responsibility does not mean humiliating yourself. It means learning.
Two opposite mistakes
When faced with failure, we can make two opposite mistakes. The first is to take all the blame: “It’s entirely my fault”, “I’m incapable”, “I’m worth nothing.”
The second is never to accept any blame at all: “It’s other people’s fault”, “I was unlucky”, “It was impossible”, “The game was too difficult.”
Maturity probably lies somewhere in between. We need to distinguish what is within our control from what is not. If we make a mistake, we should acknowledge it. If, instead, there really are unfavourable circumstances, we should not turn them into personal blame. It is a distinction that is easy to formulate but extremely difficult to put into practice.
The winner’s merit
There is another interesting aspect. Telling the loser: “It’s not your fault; the game is too difficult” paradoxically puts the winner in an even brighter light.
If the game is so difficult and I won, then I must be really good. And that is why the remark worked so well as a taunt. It pretended to console the opponent while simultaneously celebrating the person who had won.
It was a kind of inverted false modesty. I was not saying: “I’m brilliant.” I was saying: “Don’t you worry; it’s the game that’s difficult.” But the result was almost the same. It is a mechanism we often encounter among adults too. Sometimes the most effective way to boast is precisely to pretend not to.
To learn, we also need to lose
There is another lesson that games teach very well: we learn most when we face someone who is better than we are.
If we always play against less experienced people, we can win often, feel skilful, and even convince ourselves that we are very strong players. But we learn little.
Someone who is more accomplished, on the other hand, forces us to notice things we would not have seen on our own. In table football, it was obvious. Playing against someone better, you discovered a shot you did not know, a different way to control the ball, a more effective defence, a movement of the rods you had never thought of using.
You might lose ten matches in a row. But in the eleventh, you played better than you would have after winning ten matches against weaker opponents.
It is a principle that applies almost everywhere. In sport. In study. At work. Even in conversation.
If we discuss things only with people who know less than we do, we are unlikely to broaden our knowledge. If we always work with less competent people, we risk becoming the person everyone else looks to, without having anyone left for us to look to in turn.
Being the best in the group can be gratifying. But it can also become a trap. Because when we are always the ones teaching, correcting and explaining, there are fewer occasions when we are the ones who need to observe, listen and learn.
Of course, we can continue studying on our own. But direct engagement with someone more knowledgeable has a particular quality. It shows us, in concrete terms, the distance we still have to travel. And that can be uncomfortable.
Losing to someone better challenges the image we have of ourselves. But precisely for that reason, it can be extremely useful. A defeat, in this sense, is not just a defeat. It is information. It tells us: “Here is something you don’t yet know how to do.” And that is exactly where learning can begin.
By contrast, winning all the time can create a pleasant but misleading feeling. If I am always the best among the people around me, I may convince myself that I have nothing left to learn. In reality, it might simply mean that I have chosen an environment in which nobody can challenge me any more.
And being challenged, within certain limits, is a blessing. It means we are still in a situation in which we can grow.
That is why we should learn to appreciate people who are better than we are, rather than see them as a threat. A strong opponent forces us to improve. A competent colleague teaches us something. A knowledgeable teacher takes us beyond what we would have achieved on our own. A friend who knows more than we do about a subject can change our perspective.
What matters is being secure enough not to interpret every instance of another person’s greater ability as a reduction in our own worth. If someone is better than I am, I am not worth less. I simply have something to learn in that particular field.
Perhaps it could be put like this: if you are always the best in the room, sooner or later you need to change rooms. Not because being good at something is a problem, but because, to keep growing, we need to meet someone who can do something better than we can. Even at the cost of losing. Indeed, sometimes above all because we lose.
The value of a rematch
In table football, however, there was one decisive element that made everything lighter: the rematch. After a defeat, you could say: “Let’s play another.” Three very simple words. And suddenly the previous result mattered less. You had a new chance.
Perhaps part of our ability to face difficulties comes from this kind of experience. Learning that a defeat is not necessarily the end of the story. There is another match. Another attempt. Another strategy.
Of course, in life it is not always possible to start again from exactly the same point. Some opportunities never return. But the attitude remains valuable: a negative result does not necessarily define everything that comes after it.
Being better without feeling superior
Every competitive game inevitably involves a comparison. One person wins and another loses. One plays better and another worse. It would be absurd to deny this reality.
But being better at something does not mean being a better person. This is perhaps one of the most important lessons that can emerge from play.
I may be better than you at table football. You may be better than me at mathematics. Someone else may run faster. Another person may draw better. Human abilities do not form a single league table.
The problem begins when we turn superiority in one area into absolute superiority. “I’m better than you at this” becomes: “I’m better than you.” And that is exactly where competition turns into arrogance.
Knowing how to win is harder than winning
We talk a great deal about the ability to lose. But there is also an ability to win. And perhaps it is even rarer.
Winning well means acknowledging your own result without needing to humiliate the person who lost. It means being able to enjoy yourself, even joke, without turning the joke into contempt. It means understanding that the pleasure of victory does not necessarily grow by diminishing someone else.
Indeed, the opposite often happens. A victory against an opponent we respect is worth far more than a victory against someone we feel the need to consider incapable.
As children, we adjusted this balance spontaneously. We teased one another, but then we kept playing together. If you went too far, the other person got angry. If nobody joked, something was missing. We had to find the right measure.
The little phrases that stay with us
It is curious how certain childhood phrases remain in our memory. We may not remember the score. We may not remember who was playing. We may not even remember exactly how old we were. But we remember a phrase.
“It’s not your fault; the game is too difficult.” Because certain expressions contain a whole world.
Inside those words are the sharp click of the ball, the turning rods, the arguments over whether a goal counted, the rematches, the laughter, the pride of those who won and the excuses of those who lost.
And perhaps that is precisely why, after so many years, we can realise that a simple childhood joke contained a small philosophy of life.
The hidden lesson
Perhaps, then, that remark was both things at once: a taunt and a consolation.
It mocked: “You lost because you aren’t good enough.” But at the same time, it protected: “Let’s not take ourselves too seriously: it’s only a game.”
This ambiguity is probably why it worked so well. It allowed the winner to enjoy the victory. It allowed the loser to save a little pride. And it allowed them both to start again a few minutes later.
There is something adults could recover from that simplicity. We should learn to acknowledge defeats without turning them into tragedies. To admit that someone can be better than we are without feeling inferior because of it. To acknowledge our mistakes without considering ourselves failures. To win without humiliating. To lose without always looking for an excuse. And perhaps to take ourselves a little less seriously too.
Because sometimes it really is our fault. Sometimes circumstances are to blame. Sometimes the other person is simply better. And sometimes, of course, the game is too difficult.
But what matters is that, once a match is over, we still want to play the next one.
What I Would Like to Leave My Children
To the three of you, I would like to leave this distinction: the result of a match tells you how that match went, not what you are worth. When you lose, do not immediately look for someone to blame, and do not become your own harshest judges. Ask yourselves what you can learn, what was up to you and what, instead, was beyond your control.
Do not be afraid of people who are better than you are. Seek them out, listen to them, observe them. They do not take away your value: they can show you a path you do not yet know. And when you are the ones who can do something better, remember that your ability does not entitle you to treat anyone as though they were worth less.
I would also like you to keep your sense of humour, but with one consideration: shared laughter brings people closer; laughter at the expense of someone who is hurting drives them apart. If the other person is not enjoying it, saying that you were only joking is not enough. The limits are not for the person making the joke alone to decide.
I hope you will know how to win without contempt, how to lose without losing heart, and how always to find someone with whom to begin again. Because the best thing, in the end, is not to leave the table thinking you are superior. It is still to be able to look one another in the eye and say: “Let’s play another.”
Papy