Those who believe Ash should’ve won the Kalos League, how would you work around the justification that Alain’s victory was essential for his character development?

An admittedly well-crafted argument I’ve heard to justify the decision to have Alain win the Kalos League is that without those circumstances, Alain wouldn’t have been able to overcome his despair at learning of Lysandre’s manipulations after seeing Ash stand up to him, as it was seeing the ‘weaker’ trainer have the courage to take a stand that brought Alain out of his bleak star of mind. So with that in mind, how would you re-write this arc so that Ash can still get the win without jeopardising Alain’s character development?