Whenever I compete at a major championships these days, be it the Europeans, Worlds or Olympics, there genuinely isn’t any game you ever play that you know you’re basically guaranteed an easy win.
We lost to Latvia in the last Europeans and the men lost to the Netherlands at the Worlds. Maybe 10 or 20 years ago you would have expected to be able to coast to a win against emerging curling nations like those two. Not now.
You certainly wouldn’t get anything like the 13-0 the other day for USA against Thailand in the women’s football World Cup.
There is a lot of criticism going round for the Americans because they celebrated their 13th goal with the same passion as they did their first.
People felt uncomfortable watching it.
The result was obviously beyond doubt long before the end and the goal difference benefit of a big victory had been assured as well.
I can accept that they wanted to put down a marker in their first game and it wasn’t their fault that their opponent was way below their standard. And there is also a valid argument that this is a World Cup so every goal should be celebrated.
But you should also get a feel of when you’re going over the top. And giving it the big celebration when a 13th goal goes in is going over the top.
When you’re playing in a foreign country for a month at a tournament like that, getting the locals on your side is important.
I fear for America that no neutrals will be rooting for them now.
Whether they want it or not, USA will be characterised as the ruthless winning machine who people will want to see brought down a peg or two.
* “Taking the positives” out of a loss is one of the phrases that we athletes say a lot, and some of the time we know that it isn’t really the case!
But it definitely applies to the Scotland women after their World Cup defeat to England at the weekend.
Yes, they let the VAR penalty affect them for too long in the first half but the nerves will now be out of their system after playing well in the second half and scoring their first goal.
The comparison between the 6-0 tournament defeat to England a couple of years ago and the 2-1 loss this time around is a relevant one.
I’m expecting them to show what they’re all about against Japan today.
I watched Japan v Argentina and they both look like teams Scotland can be confident of getting a good result against.
* It was good to see Vicky Wright officially confirmed as a member of Team Muirhead earlier this week when the funding announcement was made for next season.
Vicky is a great curler and has been our fifth player for a while.
It means there won’t be a transition period at the start of the new season, which will be really important as we look to build on our winning end to the last one.
