Many people say that the biggest reason the US struggles in the world game is that our best athletes go to other sports. Interestingly, our soccer athletes are still usually more athletic than the teams that destroy them (Spain, Germany, Italy, etc.). The difference most soccer fans say is that it is actually a problem with our development of athletes, not the choice of athletes.

You would think if athleticism and getting the most and best mattered more than skill, then the biggest countries would have the best soccer programs, provided of course Soccer was the focal sport. However, that doesn't play out at all.

You don't see the top 10 countries in population (countries with the highest pool of athletes), even when they focus on soccer above other sports, show up as the top 10 soccer nations.

Top 10 countiries in population are https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats8.htm:

China (outside FIFA's top 50)
India (outside FIFA's top 50)
US (24)
Indonesia (outside FIFA's top 50)
Brazil (3)
Pakistan (outside FIFA's top 50)
Nigeria (42)
Bangladesh (outside FIFA's top 100)
Russia (46)
Mexico (18)

However,

The top 10 FIFA nations are:

Belgium
France
Brazil
England
Croatia
Uruaguay
Portugual
Switzerland
Spain
Denmark

Only one of the top soccer nations is also in the top 10 for population. If we throw out the US because Soccer isn't as big here, we're still left with 9 other countries where soccer is the top athletic sport and yet only one of those is in the top 10 for population. 8 of these massive nations where their top athletes are playing soccer still aren't very good at the sport. Nigeria has amazing athletes and soccer is huge there. They are the 7th largest nation in the world and their soccer team is 42nd. Russia, also top 10 in population and no 3rd world country is 46.

Instead, the top 10 soccer nations, aside from Brazil, are well outside the largest nations in the world. They simply don't have huge pools of ahletes to pick from, compared to the other top nations in population. We have lots of STATES bigger than Uruguay. The difference? Their development of skill and tactics are exceptional. Hence, Germany, Spain and Italy aren't always producing soccer players with athleticism. Think Muller, Iniesta and Pirlo. Instead, they are players who aren't very athletic compared to most professional sports, but they are very talented and smart.

I'm going to just leave this thought and go because I need to get some work done. I simply don't believe the US soccer has an athleticism problem. I think our biggest problem is we can't develop our athletes as well. If we could, every one of our players (all of whom are more athletic than Thomas Muller) would at least be as good a player. Yet none of them are.