ADELAIDE, Australia — Had you galumphed toward the Hilton in the central business district around midnight on Tuesday lacking any clue about any sports event going on anywhere nearby, then reached a lobby chockablock with revelers cheering and singing and dancing, you would have surmised that the team that just exited that bus out there and into this crowd in here must have just gotten through winning something coveted.
There was, however, one curious detail.
It had just taken a 4-0 drubbing.
That alone made all the cheering, singing and dancing uncommonly beautiful as it took its lofty place in the world’s vast realm of post-defeat human reactions.