The Pain of Finishing Second, Over and Over Again

Arsenal are on course to finish second in the Premier League for the fourth straight season after losing 2-1 to Man City on Sunday.

The Gunners were 9 points clear of their title rivals earlier this month, but back-to-back defeats have left them staring down the barrel of another runner-up finish.

Things started to go south when they lost 2-1 to Bournemouth last weekend, but losing to Man City was a real hammer blow. The game was delicately poised at 1-1 at half-time, and Arsenal then missed a couple of glorious chances to take the lead.

The Gunners were left to rue those misses, as Erling Haaland fired in a late winner. They’re still 3 points ahead of Man City, but Pep Guardiola’s men have a game in hand. If Man City beat Burnley by at least two goals on Wednesday night, they will overtake Arsenal at the top of the table.

With just five games left in the season, Man City now have the initiative in the title race, while Arsenal are crumbling. It’s a far cry from the situation the Gunners found themselves in on March 14. They were on the brink of drawing with Everton that evening, but late goals from Viktor Gyökeres and Max Dowman earned them a thrilling 2-0 win.

At that point, the analysts at Opta gave Arsenal a 97.6% chance of winning the Premier League title. That result left the Gunners 10 points ahead of their closest rivals, Man City, who were wobbling. They’ve now endured a spectacular collapse, while City are resurgent, leaving Arsenal fans with a distinct sense of déjà vu.

In the 2022/23 season, Arsenal were 8 points clear of Man City, but Guardiola’s men reeled them in and won the title. The Gunners were in first place for 248 days that season, the longest a team has ever led the league without winning it.

The following season, they finished second again. Arsenal won eight of their final nine games of the campaign, but a 2-0 defeat to Aston Villa ensured they finished 2 points behind Man City.

History repeated itself last season. Man City fell away, but Arsenal ended up second to a revitalized Liverpool team. This year, Liverpool has faded, but now Arsenal are in danger of losing out to City once again.

That would see them join the ranks of history’s serial runners-up – teams that came agonizingly close to success, only to repeatedly fall at the final hurdle. We’ve explored some of sporting history’s other nearly men.

Raymond Poulidor (1962-1976)

The French cyclist is perhaps the most beloved nearly-man in sporting history. Poulidor gained the nickname “Eternal Second” after repeatedly falling short at the Tour de France. He finished on the podium eight times – three seconds, five third-place finishes – without ever winning the race. He didn’t even wear the yellow jersey for a single day during his long career.

Poulidor can count himself unfortunate to have been racing during the era of Jacques Anquetil and then Eddy Merckx, two of the greatest cyclists of all time. However, French fans adored him, and “Poupou” eventually became more popular than Anquetil and Merckx.

Minnesota Vikings (1969-1977)

The Buffalo Bills turned losing Super Bowls into an art form in the 1990s, but the Vikings wrote the original blueprint. Minnesota reached four Super Bowls in eight years, led by superstar QB Fran Tarkenton and the fearsome Purple People Eaters defensive line, but they always collapsed in the big game. The Vikings lost 23-7 to the Chiefs at Super Bowl IV and 24-7 to the Dolphins at Super Bowl VIII.

They had the chance to make amends the following year, but they suffered a scrappy 16-6 defeat to the Steelers. Their fourth Super Bowl defeat came in February 1977, when they lost 32-14 to the Raiders. Despite their regular-season dominance –11 division titles in 13 years under head coach Bud Grant – the Vikings have never returned to the Super Bowl since then, and they remain one of the NFL’s most tortured franchises.

Greg Norman (1986–1996)

Norman was the world’s best golfer in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but his career was always defined by heartbreaking defeats at the majors. The Great White Shark finished runner-up on eight occasions, which overshadowed his two Open Championship titles. He held the 54-hole lead at all four majors in 1986, but he only won The Open Championship. Norman came up short at the Masters, the US Open, and the PGA Championship that season, and things went from bad to worse the following year. 

He was on the cusp of winning the Masters in 1987, only for Larry Mize to chip in from 140 feet in their sudden-death playoff. It remains one of the most miraculous shots in golf history, and it robbed Norman of another major. Perhaps his most agonizing defeat came in 1996, when he was six shots clear of Nick Faldo in the final round of the Masters, only to finish second.

Buffalo Bills (1990-1993)

No team in the history of sport has come to symbolize near-misses quite like Buffalo. The Bills reached four consecutive Super Bowls in the early 1990s and lost every one. Their first defeat was the most excruciating, as Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field goal drifted wide right in the dying seconds of Super Bowl XXV, handing the New York Giants a 20-19 win. They were the 7-point favorites for that game, which made their defeat all the more painful for the fans.

Buffalo was the clear underdog for the next three Super Bowls, and the Bills failed to upset the odds. They lost 37-24 to the Redskins, before suffering heavy back-to-back defeats against the Dallas Cowboys. Buffalo’s Super Bowl record remains 0-4, as they’ve never made it to the big game since 1993. 

Utah Jazz (1997-1998)

The Karl Malone and John Stockton era produced one of the NBA’s most infamous nearly teams. After suffering years of heartbreaking playoff defeats, the Jazz finally made it through to the NBA Finals in 1997. Unfortunately, they ran into Michael Jordan’s legendary Chicago Bulls team. The Bulls were operating at the peak of their powers back then, and they won the series 4-2. That included a brutal 90-88 defeat in Game 5, known as “The Flu Game.”

Utah reached the NBA Finals again the following year, but they had the misfortune of facing Jordan once again. It was another fiercely contested series, but Chicago clinched another 4-2 win. The Finals ended with one of the most iconic moments in basketball history, as Jordan hit a 20-foot jumper over Bryon Russell with just 5.2 seconds remaining in Game 6 to earn his team an 87-86 win. Malone retired with more points than any player apart from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but he never won a championship ring.

Bayer Leverkusen (2001-2002)

Germany’s nearly men earned the unwanted moniker Bayer Neverkusen after suffering a spectacular collapse at the end of the 2001/02 season. They were 5 points clear of their closest rivals at the top of the Bundesliga table, with just three games remaining. However, they then lost 2-1 to Werder Bremen and 1-0 to Nürnberg. That dreadful run of results ensured they finished second, just 1 point behind champions Borussia Dortmund.

The following week, they lost 4-2 to Schalke in the German Cup final. Four days later, they headed to Glasgow to face Real Madrid in the Champions League final. Lúcio scored on 14 minutes, but goals from Raúl and Zinedine Zidane condemned them to a 2-1 defeat. They were dreaming of winning a famous treble, but they ended up with nothing. Leverkusen’s trophy drought continued for another 22 years, but Xabi Alonso finally led them to a league and cup double in 2024.

Vancouver Canucks (2011)

The Canucks had previously lost Stanley Cup Finals in 1982 and 1994, but they believed that 2011 was finally their year. They topped the regular-season standings with a franchise-record 117 points, led by Art Ross winner Daniel Sedin alongside Vezina Trophy–winning goaltender Roberto Luongo. The Canucks were imperious during the playoffs, reaching the Stanley Cup Finals for the third time.

Vancouver cruised into a 2-0 series lead, but the team then suffered an epic meltdown. It culminated in Game 7, when they lost 4-0 at home. The fans went on a rampage, causing millions of dollars in damage after devastating riots in downtown Vancouver. They’ve not been back to the Finals since then, so this nearly-team is still chasing its first Stanley Cup.

Gonzaga (2021)

Gonzaga was once a plucky mid-major, but the team has now evolved into a college basketball blueblood that can’t quite finish the job. The Bulldogs reached their first National Championship game in 2017, but they lost 71-65 to North Carolina.

That was a bitter pill to swallow, but it paled in comparison to their 2021 defeat. Gonzaga was ranked first all season and entered the National Championship game undefeated. The Bulldogs were 4.5-point favorites, but they ended up losing 86-70 to Baylor. They’ve been hovering around the top of the AP rankings for several years, earning plenty of No. 1 seeds, but they keep falling short in the spring. 

Dishonorable Mentions

• Dan Marino: The NFL’s all-time passing leader finished his career without a Super Bowl ring.
• Andy Murray: He lost eight Grand Slam finals during his career, which coincided with the rise of Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, and Novak Djoković.
• Netherlands: The Oranje have reached three World Cup finals, but they lost every single one.
• Jimmy White: A snooker player who lost six World Championship finals, including a particularly brutal defeat to Stephen Hendry in 1994.
• Buffalo Sabres: Reached two Stanley Cup Finals, and lost on both occasions, falling victim to the infamous “No Goal” overtime winner by Brett Hull in 1999.
• Phil Mickelson: Runner-up at the US Open a record six times, making it the only major he didn’t win.