Well, nfl/nba are focused on big guys, 6’3 and above. In soccer your height/mass doesn’t matter much so the talent pools don’t overlap. And baseball is the old man’s game that does not require any athleticism at all.
Beaten-to-death takes about baseball and athleticism aside, if a kid shows potential there it's a great path to follow:
- some of the highest individual salaries and (to date) least restrictions on team spending
- it's very very very easy for individual talent to stand out at basically every position; this can be harder in football and various levels especially for non-QB positions
But once you're on the baseball path you're not gonna be training a skillset that would have much overlap with a soccer skillset.
This is untrue and also just silly. The talent pools for horse jockeys and NBA players don't overlap. The talent pool for soccer and football is probably 90% overlap. Smaller players are certainly more likely to be successful in soccer than football but tall players can do great in soccer and average height guys can do well in football.
> And baseball is the old man’s game that does not require any athleticism at all.
Come on. Baseball doesn't demand the same athleticism as soccer but these guys are still elite athletes and there are plenty of stories of both MLB and NFL offering positions to the same players.
Lionel Messi, the greatest soccer player of all time is only 5'7 - that should tell you something.
One data point doesn’t tell me anything. Cristiano Ronaldo, also frequently in the “GOAT” conversation is 6’2”.
On Argentina’s national team, literally no one is shorter than Messi. 17 of the players (20 with keepers) are taller than the Argentinian average male height with only 6 below.
> they usually max out around 6'3, but that's only for certain specialized positions like a striker, or central defender
Specialized positions like “all of them”. There are literally no positions in soccer where it is advantageous to be short. There are simply positions where it is less of a disadvantage.
> Above that and you are too big and too slow, smaller players will quite literally run circles around you.
I’m the same height as Messi so I would love to believe that there is some athletic advantage to being short, but it’s just not true. Messi is outstanding in spite of his height, not because of it.
Short people are not faster than tall people, not even very tall people. Maybe in the extreme outliers this is true, but Usain Bolt is 6’5”.
This includes college football and basketball, which are part of the career path for those sports.
Women's soccer is relatively popular, however.
This may be a function of the fact that no other women's team sport is at all popular in the US?
A natural cornerback isn't going to be "quicker and faster" over that many miles without a different kind of conditioning that probably favors different genetics. That said, I do think the game would translate well for some cornerbacks in some roles.