So a common refrain throughout the World Cup was that the US men's national team can't be great, because the best athletes in the US play American football or baseball or other more lucrative sports.
Here's a naive set of questions in response: how fungible are athletes really in terms of body types? It strikes me that looking at the 5' 7" Messi and the 5' 8" Xavi that these aren't people who would have excelled in American sports even if they had been born in the USA. Two of the all-time greats - Pele and Maradona - were also not very tall. Maybe these people might have become Pedroia-like baseball players, but Pedroia seems much more an outlier in height among baseball players than Messi is among soccer ones. The Danny Woodheads of the NFL also seem ridiculously wee in a way that doesn't apply to soccer. Might a low center of gravity benefit soccer players? What happens to short but athletic types in America growing up?
Here's a naive set of questions in response: how fungible are athletes really in terms of body types? It strikes me that looking at the 5' 7" Messi and the 5' 8" Xavi that these aren't people who would have excelled in American sports even if they had been born in the USA. Two of the all-time greats - Pele and Maradona - were also not very tall. Maybe these people might have become Pedroia-like baseball players, but Pedroia seems much more an outlier in height among baseball players than Messi is among soccer ones. The Danny Woodheads of the NFL also seem ridiculously wee in a way that doesn't apply to soccer. Might a low center of gravity benefit soccer players? What happens to short but athletic types in America growing up?