Lack of Ball Knowledge

Let’s stop being disrespectful to the worlds game that this sub is supposed to represent within the United States. “If all of our best athletes played soccer”, “nobody cares about soccer”, and always of the hypothetical and incorrect points you see on here every hour. Here is some data.

Difficulty of entering the top 5 team sports in the US at the elite level: available roster spots in each sport / youth participants worldwide (low end projection of age 41 and below). Ranked in order of difficulty below.

Basketball (NBA): 450 / 150,000,000 =0.000003

Soccer (EPL, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Bundesliga): 2450 / 200,000,000=0.0000123

Baseball (MLB): 780 / 20,000,000=0.000039

Hockey (NHL): 736 / 3,000,000=0.000245

Football (NFL): 2208 / 5,000,000=0.000442

Soccer is the most played youth sport in the United States. Odell Beckham is considered the best American athlete who played soccer at a high level in his youth years. He had a 2% chance of making the USMNT by the time he stopped playing. That doesn’t even take account in what reaching to be an elite professional is like as a top 100 player in the world. These hypothetical arguments do a lot of damage in what could be a learning process for other Americans watching it casually. Fox coverage and a lot of pundits don’t do this difficulty justice. They go on the soft side and try to get Americans to lean into the sport by talking about other sports greatness during matches. There is no comparison. These guys are the elite of the elite on the world stage.