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soccer, really, is not “the world’s game.” Though it has the highest global participation rate of any sport, there are quite a few countries where it is not the most popular game. Those include eight of the world’s 10 most populous countries. On the whole, people in China, India, the U.S., and Indonesia—the top four in population—play soccer but have other sports they prefer. Only in No. 5 Brazil and No. 7 Nigeria does soccer have a clear edge.

All the countries who have ever won a World Cup have at least one thing in common: Soccer has no real competitor for athletic talent.

There were years of painstaking building of teams and leagues before a national squad could be assembled that was good enough to challenge at World Cup level. (For a brief history, I recommend National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer by Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist.)