Photograph: James Marsh/Shutterstock
I feel a bit sorry for Americans. They don’t go through enough national sporting despair. OK, they had an invigorating shot of misery last Sunday night losing the Ryder Cup, but that was a rare thing for them. It’s rare because they’re so dominant in all the team sports they really care about, not least because their biggest team sports – certainly NFL and baseball – aren’t played by anyone else. Or at least not to the extent that another nation is ever going to come close to beating them in any meaningful “world cup” competition. Basketball, to be fair, is widely played around the world but essentially the same applies – the US men have been Olympic champions 17 times out of 20; for the women it’s nine out of 12. Ice hockey is slightly different. Here, Americans haven’t had it all their own way, and in Canada have a genuine local rival. This may be one reason Trump makes noises about taking them over.
So, why feel sorry for them? For a start, how diminished must be the joy of winning if you’re winning all the time? As a bloke with whom I go to the football always says after a miserable defeat: without despair there is no joy.
