We have all been there on a damp Tuesday night, staring at a football match we did not think we cared about, yet somehow unable to look away. Unfairly, purists dismiss the World Cup third-place play-off as a meaningless exercise for heartbroken teams. Bronze finishers are typically much happier than runners-up, according to classic findings from the renowned Cornell University psychological analysis "When Less Is More: Counterfactual Thinking and Satisfaction on the Olympic Podium".