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I wonder what the quality would be if football was not the hoover of European childhood athletic talent it currently is. Plenty of sportsmen in other fields played football as children and went onto success in other sports. Maybe if basketball was the predominant sport of young boys would we still have Messi and Ronaldo?

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The opposite is true in the US. Parents treat soccer as a youth pastime and funnel kids towards basketball, football and baseball for high school and college.

Then the question becomes: Would LeBron or Patrick Mahomes be elite soccer players if they were raised in Europe?

My guess is yes. Their body composition would be different by following different fitness goals but I think there’s a combination of strength, balance, vision, endurance, leadership, decision making and determination that is highly translatable across team sports.

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