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Dr_thri11 t1_ixgvc7l wrote

Can you see how having 4 other sports and soccer being a very distant 4th places siphons off the elite athletes though. You can't tell me that a country of 330 million wouldn't consistently field a better team than most of Europe and South America if it was far and away the most popular sport. But it's not, it's been kind of an afterthought the most elite athletes in the US have 4 other sports they tend to pick first.

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Dr0110111001101111 t1_ixgx182 wrote

I definitely think it would make us far more competitive, but I definitely wouldn’t assume that would guarantee elite status just because of population size.

You made a great example with Uruguay. Tiny country, consistently competitive. Meanwhile soccer is huge in India (compared to USA) but they rarely even get a team to qualify.

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