In Ernest Hemingway's widely-acclaimed novel "The Old Man and the Sea", the huge fleshless skeleton of a marlin that Santiago eventually brought ashore signaled the great story of a man's fierce and gruelling battles with storms and sharks. But except for "the boy", no one seemed to truly understand what happened to the old man and how he took home the colossal fish which was perhaps worthless on the market.

The marlin was the old man's trophy, but it could not change his poor luck. He had no fish for many days after and this did not help to improve his impoverished living conditions.

In his profound, precise and passionate portrait, Hemingway unveiled man's undaunting spirit. It is one that is often underestimated, if not totally ignored in the real world, but still thrives and inspires. Through writing about the old man, Hemingway, in essence, wrote about mankind.

During the upcoming semi-finals of the League of Legends (LoL), Invictus Gaming (IG) and FunPlus Phoenix (FPX) both from the LoL Pro League (LPL) based on the Chinese mainland will rival with each other for a place in the finals of Season 9 scheduled to be held on Nov. 19 in Paris. At the same time, another two strong competitors - Gamers2 (G2) from Europe and SK Telecom (SKT) of LoL Champions Korea (LCK) - will also vie for a spot in the finals. 

However, for many LPL fans, who watched the tournament from the group stage, the defeat of Royal Never Give Up (RNG), a second-seeded and the only full Chinese LPL team, excited them. RNG lost their critical pool match on Oct. 20 to Fnatic (FNT), the runners-up in Europe.

It is understandable that many would sacrifice sleep to watch the game in hope that RNG would avenge last year's defeat and advance to the quarter-finals. Many hoped that it would prove itself to be one of the best-performing teams with Jian Zihao, identified in the games as Uzi, as one of the world's leading Attack Damage Carriers (ADCs).

Nevertheless, reality was cruel. 

Despite Uzi's 18,000 damage score, which was more than those of FNC's two major rivals combined, RNG players watched their core building collapse on their base which signalled an end to the game and smashed the Chinese team's hopes of advancing to the quarter-finals. Last year, on the same day, RNG lost their game 2:3 to G2 at the quarter-finals, missing the best opportunity to win the trophy of the Summer Season, which is the most prestigious heavyweight international championship for LoL players.

The defeat now hangs over the RNG team. Despite their honors last year — the championships of the 2018 Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), of the Asian Olympic Games and the LPL tournament, the resignation of three key veteran players and the team's low ranking in the first round of the LPL tournament before MSI 2019, gutted the remaining players.

In addition, the rise of Kang Seung-lok, known as TheShy of IG's unparalleled top solo, is a great obstacle to RNG's pursuit of the championship with his singular triple-kill, if not quintuple-kill, that stunned the world last year. 

However, there are reports showing that, Uzi, the king of the last hit, practiced even harder with his teammates despite aches on his back, elbows and wrists that tortured him over many sleepless nights.

With the team's strong resolve and countless practices, RNG's ranking at the LPL tournament started to rise as they defeated the main competitors, even IG, which is the most formable LPL team. But the team eventually lost at the finals to FPX.

On that particular night, when FPX was ready to lift their hard-won trophy, a photographer captured the back of Uzi, who was walking down the aisle to the lounge. The photo captured a moment when he turned his head to the same stage where they had been the center of exhilaration and celebration only one year ago.

"I'll fight till I'm unable to fight anymore," he said three days before their match with FNT.

But the defeat to FNT was fatal. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't hold back his tears as all their hard work, practice, expectations and dreams vanished on that particular moment. The live streaming display screen was replete with criticisms, their performance and the mistakes they made.

Like the skeletal fish brought back by Santiago, RNG's knockout resembled an exercise in "fishless fishing". All the players headed home immediately after their defeat as they didn't have the heart to enjoy German culture in Berlin and no one knew what their future would hold.

While facing immense criticism, all the players have since remained silent. Behind the trophies and the fetes, there are so many teams like RNG, whose hard work and devotion have been dismissed simply because of their defeats at various levels in the game.

Players of defeated teams also deserve respect. In the same way that it is hard to imagine, let alone experience, how much danger a skiff at the center of sea storm faces, it is difficult to comprehend the struggles a team faces in trying to beat their rivals and win.

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