This actually does mean more. There is no other way to cut a playoff final than its division between success and failure. Tears flow either from happiness or sorrow. There can be no in-between. Any pride in defeat will be swallowed by desolation.
Such is the cruelty and beauty of the format. Wonderful to win, awful to lose, something akin to a blood sport voyeur event to the neutral. If rising to such occasions writes club legends, freezing can banish participants to infamy. Defeat added to Leeds’s horrible history at both Wembley and the playoffs.
