John Leicester

Their colonial history notwithstanding, the English often like to think of themselves as being good at doing the right thing.

In deciding that John Terry should no longer captain the national team while accused of a racially aggravated crime, the English Football Association did the right thing.

Fabio Capello was either incapable or unwilling to accept that, and so said "ciao!" to his $9 million-a-year job as England coach. In doing so, the Italian demonstrated how little he learned about the English psyche in four years in charge of the Three Lions.

PARIS -- For sports fans who feel or who are on the wrong side of 40, the annual awards season can be a little sobering.

"Player Of The Year," "Athlete Of The Year," "Absurdly Fit and Sculpted Body of The Year." For the majority of us not in the running for such acclaim, the winners can appear as otherworldly as gods, admirable but too untouchable to be truly inspiring. Plus, annoyingly, they only get younger with each passing year.

PARIS -- It's often fishy when politicians wade into the world of sports, popping up at just the right moment to be photographed with a winning team and scoring political points off the back of sports as freely as Lionel Messi scores goals.

When Wayne Rooney set alight the 2004 European Championship as an 18-year-old, becoming the youngest goalscorer in the tournament's history, no crystal ball could have foretold that the brilliant but flawed gem of English football would go on to become such a disappointment and liability for his country.

Rooney's four goals in Portugal seven years ago were his last for England in the finals of a major championship. Since then, the 2006 World Cup, the 2008 Euros that England failed to even qualify for and the 2010 World Cup have been and gone, all without another goal from Rooney and with his country still waiting for his teenage promise to translate into a tournament performance to remember for good reasons, not bad.

Truth is, that day might never come. As absurd as this would have seemed in 2004, Rooney's England career is now at risk of largely passing him by. With his speed, strength, rubber-ball energy levels and precocious ability for scoring, Rooney looked destined to be a much-loved England great and, with 28 goals in 73 appearances, a genuine threat to Bobby Charlton's record of 49 goals for the Three Lions.

One word for it is nauseating. Opposing fans from two famous English soccer clubs mocking and taunting each other about death and each other's suffering.

Sickening and hateful chants by fans aren't new in English soccer nor, unfortunately, are they going away. The pessimist would argue that not much can be done to stop them because in large crowds stoked on beer and often bitter rivalries, there'll always be a tiny-minded minority of loud mouths who will disgrace themselves.

World's highest mountain? Easy. World's fastest man? Easy, too. The world record for female marathon running? That, too, used to be a cinch until the bright sparks who oversee track and field delivered a slap against women everywhere by invalidating their records set when they run marathons alongside men.

The not-so-subtle message is that women cannot complete 26.2 miles as quickly alone as they can when they have a helping hand from the guys.