Taking sport too seriously

My post, a few months ago, about who, right then, were the best sportspeople in the world, inevitably made me look a fool, to an extent. I thought I'd look back and see who I was right about, who I was completely wrong about. Here was the 50/100 I listed. But I'm going to put bold those ones where I'm wrong, based on current performance (or retirement!), and write a list of names who I missed out. The first 50 Gennady Golovkin (Kazakhstan, Boxing) Rory McIlroy (UK, Golf) Floyd Mayweather (USA, Boxing) Ashton Eaton (USA, Decathlon) Missy Franklin (USA, Swimming) Tom Brady (USA, American Football) LeBron James (USA, Basketball) Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka, Cricket) Alberto Contador (Spain, Cycling) Lionel Messi (Argentina, Football) Marianne Vos (Netherlands, Cycling) Valerie Adams (New Zealand, Shot Put) Mo Farah (UK, Athletics) Marc Marquez (Spain, Motorcycle Racing) Tony McCoy (Ireland, Horse Racing) Ronaldo (Portugal, Football) Usain Bolt (Jamaica, ...

I don't tend to be one for big sporting theories - more medium-sized. What I mean is, when it comes to the England football team losing all but one Penalty Shoot-Out in a major tournament and Germany winning every one for over 30 years, I'm not interested in ideas about overarching national psyche, but I'll extend to the notion that Germany used to practice it more, a couple of times it was down to luck, it became self-perpetuating, some England players therefore went into shoot-outs with fear, it became more than likely it would continue to happen. That's my idea of a sporting theory - "lots of little things" serves to explain hoodoos and superstitions and patterns in my book. So, what's the big idea behind England's major sporting teams' recent profound failures in World Cup? Recent, you say? Perennial, more like it... But no, recent is right. Things have changed. Things have got particularly bad. For decades, across football, rugby and, to a l...