Settling for silver: Five examples of sporting nearly men

We’re more than happy to celebrate winners in the sporting field, but spare a thought for those who come so close but can’t quite make the leap to success.

The Dutch national football team

Make a list of all the great international football teams throughout history and you can pretty much guarantee that the Dutch team of the 1970s will feature alongside the Hungarian team of the 1950s, the Brazil team of 1970, the French team of the late 90s/early 00s and the current Spanish crop.

While their legacy has been preserved, however, they have no trophies to go with it having tasted defeat in two consecutive World Cup Finals in 1974 and 1978.

A well-publicised hotel incident prior to the game (that was subsequently revealed to have been set up by German tabloid Bild) affected preparation for the 1974 final defeat to West Germany while intimidation tactics on behalf of hosts Argentina and the absence of Johan Cruyff certainly had an effect four years later.

The Mayo football team

If you can detect a smudge on your computer screen that’s because I am shedding a virtual tear while writing about my native Mayo, whose quest for a first All-Ireland title in over 60 years fell at the final hurdle for a sixth time in 24 years last September.

Rarely has a GAA famine attracted as much coverage as Mayo’s long and agonising wait to embrace Sam once again, even if said coverage consists of as much ridicule as it does encouragement at this stage.

But we’re nothing if not eternal optimists and the 13-MO-SAM number plates are almost ready to roll off the production line at the drop of the hat once again come the summer time. This is our year, I swear!

Jimmy White

Snooker doesn’t enjoy the same profile now as it did in the 80s and 90s, when the likes of Hendry, Davis, Parrot and Taylor all won world titles and Jimmy White was arguably the biggest hard-luck story in the world of sport.

Having lost the 1984 World Championship final by two frames to Steve Davis, he lost five consecutive finals (four to Stephen Hendry and one to John Parrot) during a particularly rotten run of luck from 1990-94.

Given the manner of some of his defeats and the lovable character of the man, there weren’t many who didn’t sympathise with White’s plight; even Hendry himself appeared to feel a little sorry for him at times.

Michael Ballack

If Ryan Giggs sets the bar as far as trophy hauls are concerned, then surely there are few footballers who can match the amount of silver medals Michael Ballack amassed throughout his eventful career.

2002, when Ballack narrowly missed out on the Bundesliga, the Champions League and the German League Cup with Bayer Leverkusen and the World Cup with Germany must have been a particularly tough year for Ballack, as was 2008 when he finished second in the Premier League, the Champions League and League Cup with Chelsea and was also on the losing side as Spain defeated Germany in the European Championships final.

Ballack also has three more Bundesliga runners-up medals with Leverkusen and Bayern and another with Chelsea, but in fairness he’s also won plenty to make up for being on the losing side more often than he’d like.

The Chicago Cubs baseball team

Since the Boston Red Sox ended the ‘Curse of the Bambino’ and won the World Series in 2004, the focus, in terms of baseball droughts at least, has shifted to the Chicago Cubs, who haven’t won a World Series since 1908, have lost eight in ten appearances in total and haven’t even contested one since the final year of World War II.

They came close to getting there in 2003, but were infamously hindered from doing so by Cubs fan Steve Bartman, who deflected a ball away from outfielder Moisés Alou at a crucial stage in the fourth game of a seven-game series against the Florida Marlins (the Cubs were 3-0 up) and was practically forced into hiding afterwards.

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