Players, and fans, can accept losing. It is part of sports. It is different, though, if they find out one side wasn’t playing by the same rules.
Watford’s players sat silent, disconsolate in the Wembley changing room. The 2019 F.A. Cup final was “their moment,” as the team’s long-serving captain, Troy Deeney, had put it. Like most of his teammates, Deeney had never won a major honor. The club had not graced the final, English soccer’s great gala occasion, for 35 years.