"Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser." Know who said this? The same man who also said: "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." (Although this wasn't an original quote). Care to guess his nationality? That's right. American.

Vince Lombardi, hugely successful as coach of the Green Bay Packers American Football team in the 1960s, was that man - and the second quote was borrowed from another US coach cut from the same brash cloth, Red Sanders.

Lombardi would have heartily approved of the behaviour, and demeanour, of a fellow American on Sunday evening at the US golfers' press conference which followed their third successive Ryder Cup defeat by Team Europe.

The question posed to Phil Mickelson - "What worked for the US team in 2008 that hasn't worked since that time?" - was a classic journalistic invitation. At that moment, to the five-times major-winner who had not been selected to play in Saturday's matches, the question was a ball sitting up nicely on the fairway, begging to be despatched on its way to the green - and secretly primed to explode.

Phil Michelson makes his unhappiness with US team captain Tom Watson very clear at the post-event Ryder Cup press conference on Sunday ©Getty Images

Others might have walked on by. Mickelson gave this opportunity a right old crack as he celebrated the motivational skills and meticulous game-plan exhibited by Paul Azinger, the last man to captain the US to a Ryder Cup win, and, by inference, criticised the performance of the 2014 captain and eight-times major-winner Tom Watson, who sat staring into the middle distance a few seats along from him.

"Unfortunately we have strayed from the winning formula for the last three Ryder Cups," Mickelson added.

This excruciating sequence earned fierce criticism for Mickelson on either side of the Atlantic. It was not that he didn't have a point. It was not that Watson's captaincy had been perfect. The criticism effectively boiled down to two considerations: time and place.

Nick Faldo, who had captained the Europe team which lost to Azinger's men in 2008, said on the Golf Channel: "That should have been a private conversation. Phil certainly doesn't respect Tom Watson."

Colin Montgomerie, Europe's winning captain in 2010, commented: "Should we go into this one hour after we've been defeated? The answer is a flat no. You support your captain under all circumstances. In public, you respect and honour your captain."

Colin Montgomerie, pictured with the Ryder Cup after leading Europe to victory in 2010, believes '"n public, you respect and honour your captain" ©Getty Images

Without doubt, Mickelson transgressed this unwritten law. The most immediate parallel which came to mind was that of Roy Keane's bitter condemnation of the Ireland football manager Mick McCarthy and of the training facilities and general approach as the squad prepared in Saipan ahead of the 2002 World Cup finals.

Keane's simmering dissatisfaction with the Irish set-up boiled over during a team meeting and he reportedly ended up by telling McCarthy: "I didn't rate you as a player, I don't rate you as a manager, and I don't rate you as a person...you can stick your World Cup up your arse. The only reason I have any dealings with you is that somehow you are manager of my country. You can stick it up your bollocks."

Roy Keane, pictured playing for Ireland in 2001, told manager Mick McCarthy the following year "you can your World Cup up your arse" ©Getty Images

Reportedly. While the Manchester United man's outburst - an excoriating farewell to any prospect of continuing his international career under that management - went far beyond the indirect criticism employed by Mickelson, it was not made in public, albeit that it soon found its way into the public domain.

Which, according to the Montgomerie tenet, made it more excusable.

In the wake of Mickelson's comments, others have recalled Kevin Pietersen's lambasting of the England cricket coach Peter Moores during the unhappy tour of India in 2008, after which Moores was removed from his position. But Pietersen, who was encouraged to resign as captain on the same day that Moores went, claimed that he had not leaked the criticism to the media himself.

Which also made it more excusable. Although Pietersen's position on moral high ground may be about to slip given his combustive tweet yesterday signalling the impending expiry of his confidentiality agreement with the English Cricket Board following his effective sacking from the international scene in February.

England cricket coach Peter Moores (left) was not Kevin Pietersen's cup of tea during the 2008 tour of India ©Getty Images

The rule about not criticising one's coach or manager publicly works both ways. Sir Alex Ferguson was not averse to offering the odd word of criticism to those players whom he deemed to have fallen below the high standards expected at Manchester United. But he did so in the (relative) privacy of the dressing room or training ground.

Sir Alf Ramsey, who guided England to their only World Cup win in 1966 was a managerial paradigm in this respect. When the FIFA bigwigs were putting pressure on the Football Association to drop Nobby Stiles from the team following his extravagant and damaging foul on the French player Jacques Simon during the final qualifying match, Ramsey - having had Stiles's word that it was a badly timed rather than malignant challenge - threatened to resign. Stiles played the quarter-final against Argentina - and proved a model of restraint despite multiple provocations.

Ramsey's loyalty to the team ethic was evidenced impressively at the World Cup finals four years later. Peter Bonetti, a late goalkeeping substitute for the ill Gordon Banks in England's World Cup quarter-final against West Germany, had let in two soft goals as his team went from 2-0 up to a 3-2 defeat after extra-time. There was no word of criticism for the hapless keeper from Ramsey. Any such outburst would have been quite alien to this honourable man.

US Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson listens to his approach being criticised by Phil Mickelson during the post-event press conference ©Getty Images

Tom Watson, now 65, is also widely held to be an honourable man. Not for him the reaction of another sporting captain, Nottinghamshire cricketer Jason Gallion. In the wake of Notts' relegation in 2003 Gallion responded dramatically to Kevin Pietersen's request to be released from his contract, citing general unhappiness and a poor pitch at Trent Bridge, allegedly throwing the former South African's kit off the balcony and breaking his bat.