In contrast to his dithering predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Mr Maliki has looked a lot more decisive.
Frankie Dettori made the early running on Soul, but the Australian mare was handily placed in third before making what looked like a decisive move to the front.
But at a chilly, frantic Wembley it was the other No 7, Son Heung-min, who made what looked like a decisive intervention just after half-time, scoring from close range to give Tottenham the lead.
Cantrell then had a shot tipped on to the bar by goalkeeper Nicola Davies as the home side looked for a decisive second.
"If you look at the show he looks like a decisive, tough leader, in the high-back chair, perfectly lit, perfectly made-up, making decisions".
But now a trial of strength with opponents at home has reached what looks like a decisive moment.
"The biographer's trap," John Guy remarks in "Thomas Becket," his portrait of that foremost friend turned foremost foe of Henry II, "is to look for a decisive moment of change".
Nuclear diplomacy with Iran, where Germany is one of the six nations trying to negotiate with Tehran, is entering what looks like a decisive phase.
The place to look for a decisive shift in sentiment is in the buy-out market, which has been fuelled by a trio of habits that in more sober times would have had lenders reaching for the Alka-Seltzer.The first of these lies in the burgeoning market for "covenant-lite" loans.
The problem is that, for the moment, Mr Blair looks like a decisive, authoritative leader in firm charge of his party; the sort of general behind whom people want to march, even if they don't quite know where he is going.
