Football common sense, though, suggests teams must score when in ascendency.
These megacity mayors reflect and embody the ascendency of cities in a world of dysfunctional nation-states.
Yet given the region's new geo-political map, increasingly its assault on Gaza is viewed not only as a war on Hamas but on the Sunni Islamist ascendency, as in Syria.
The ascendency that he gained over her, however, did not lead to her submission.
With the exile of al-Muʿtamid and his family to Morocco began the ascendency in Spain of the Almoravids.
A best-seller that became a major film in 1965, it tells of the ocean voyage of a group of Germans back to their homeland from Mexico in 1931, on the eve of Hitler's ascendency.
The conspiracies that erupted under his successor, Cardinal Mazarin, failed as much because Richelieu had wrought a fundamental psychological change in favour of the moral ascendency of the crown as because, by the destruction of castles and city walls and the centralization of military authority, he had eliminated the power base of both aristocratic and religious dissent.
And Donald Trump's ascendency is unlikely to be much dented.
As well as the Scandinavian ascendency, there are other aspects of the rise of crime fiction worth scrutiny – UK library lending figures hammer home its almost disquieting popularity.
Yet the ascendency over Woods was hauntingly brief; it was more a promise of unlikely rewards for the boldest spirit than much more than a breath of any sure-fire certainty and when Westwood dropped shots on the eight and the ninth, the Tiger was back at his shoulder and then dead level.
another former MP, said: "I think he should stand down as leader, but stay as Deputy Prime Minister, allowing Vince an unopposed ascendency".
