Yet the Soviet army, the most recent, was not exactly defeated: it withdrew in 1989 because it had wearied of an unpopular war that it struggled to justify to the people at home.
The half-empty view is that the election, if not exactly a defeat for Blair, was about as close as he could get without losing his job.
By six o'clock on Saturday night, 115 matches between Six Nations teams and the big three - add Australia and South Africa to the world champions - since the 2007 World Cup had brought exactly 100 defeats for those in the north.
Sporting's head coach, Peter Vermes, cut a frustrated figure on the sidelines for much of the afternoon and he wasn't exactly gracious in defeat.
He emerged, after bouts of hepatitis, malaria and lost teeth, not exactly disillusioned but defeated, he recalled recently from the comfort of his study overlooking a garden of palms.
Antoine de Saint-exactly exacatchestheir their mood: "Defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom," he wrote, "and above all, of futility".
Trump's crass, IDF to continue humiliating Jeb!, even as the latter retreats in defeat, is exactly why his supporters love him and why the attacks worked in the first place.
Trump's crass, IDF to continue humiliating Jeb!, even as the latter retreats in defeat, is exactly why his supporters love him – and why the attacks worked in the first place.
That, though, is exactly what Inter did, defeating those opponents by a combined scoreline of 5-0.
The promoters may be entirely within their rights to build the mosque near ground zero, but if they are trying to start a dialogue of reconciliation, it is having exactly the opposite effect, defeating the very purpose of supposedly starting a dialogue.
