Underdog stories are inspiring because they’re rare. Play hard anyway, and enjoy it either way.

The reason those stories move people is that the result is genuinely unlikely, and pretending otherwise sets you up for a bad week. Effort does not guarantee the upset. What it does is make you better, keep you in the contest, and make the whole thing worth having done whichever way it lands.

Go into the next fixture playing as hard as you can while knowing the odds honestly. Decide beforehand what would make it a good day apart from the result, and hold yourself to that.