Sorry to use this old cliche (or actually, the inverse of an old cliche, though the inverse is also old), but it exactly describes what happened yesterday. Before the game, I assumed England would win because they had an easier time getting to the semi-finals and so were more rested, and even as the game was tied, and they fell behind, I still assumed they would win, till they finally lost. It just seemed to be the case that since they scored in the first few minutes, they sort of decided that the game was won already. (And Croatia certainly looked demoralized at that point, too.) It’s like the 1974 final when Holland scored in the first minute, but eventually lost to West Germany by the same score as yesterday, 2-1. Both England and Holland had lots of time to add another goal, yet didn’t bother to do it.
« Memo to #WalkAway: Being a Right-Wing Egalitarian Is Possible | Main | Light and Irregular Blogging Alert »
07/12/2018
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
The comments to this entry are closed.
The original expression must have been "snatch victory from the jaws of defeat", and people think they're being clever in modifying this phrase to "snatch defeat from the laws of victory". But this no-longer-clever variation has actually come to be used more often than the original wording: 147,000 hits versus 104,000 hits, according to a Google search I did just now.
Posted by: Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) | 07/14/2018 at 02:54 PM
That doesn't surprise me. The original, I suppose, seems too dated, while the inverse seems clever.
Posted by: John Pepple | 07/14/2018 at 07:44 PM