If you browse the internetz, or at least my Twitter feed, one answer to this question seems to be "we imported Africans," followed by some barely coherent story about immigration undermining the soul of a formerly proud nation, blah-blah.

The rule has now held for all six men’s football World Cups since 2006. Apart from Croatia and Lionel Messi’s Argentina, every team finishing first, second or third has been western European. This year’s semi-finals pit France against Spain and England against Argentina.

"How can a region with 5 per cent of the world’s population be so good? I’ve been on a life-long journey to find out.""How can a region with 5 per cent of the world’s population be so good? I’ve been on a life-long journey to find out."

Make amateur football cheap and available, is his answer: "Winning World Cups was a byproduct."

Hashtag GoNorway

As one of the world’s richest regions, western Europe has been able to afford to pump cash into sport. In Norway, said Klaveness, profits from the state’s betting monopoly were spent on “Norwegian sports and fields”.

Hashtag less GoNorway...? Maybe just let Predyx run it.

Everyone played and understood how to play. Football is geometry — about creating space when you have the ball, and shrinking it when you don’t. That knowledge is all around you in western Europe, unlike in Asia, Africa, the US or Brazil.

Very unclear about that statement... Favelas, anyone? Slums. This one is more believable:

Letting everyone play benefits the national team. That’s because football isn’t basketball or rowing, where you can identify future stars aged four based on body shape. Massive Erling Haaland and little Messi both became great. [...] It’s also hard to predict which teenage prospect will make it. Haaland at 17 was not special, according to Ruben Gabrielsen, his then-captain at Norwegian club Molde. “Not one person in that dressing room can say, ‘I knew all along he would become this good’.” Countries succeed in World Cups by helping every six-year-old develop.

That's pretty neat: like in chess, you just need pure numbers to filter out the truly great and exceptional ones. (Norway managed that too, hashtag GOAT Magnus...) #990485

When you fly over urban English landscape these days, you see roads and houses and streetlights -- plus countless green rectangles, lit up at night and with people on them. It's truly a football factory.

Here's an odd observation I didn't see coming:

Western European football’s other strength is what historian Norman Davies called the region’s “user-friendly climate”. Much of western Europe was (until recently) mild and rainy. That means the land is fertile, which has enabled hundreds of millions of people to live crammed together in a small area, while remaining separated into different national traditions. Each country did things a little differently, but they were close enough to learn from each other.

"Europe excels at football. If only its system worked as well in fields such as tech, academia or the military.""Europe excels at football. If only its system worked as well in fields such as tech, academia or the military."

Yeah, a kid can dream. Europe is dying: all we have is fancy beaches, overstocked nursing homes, porn, and a good amount of football. #1495638, #1006594

archive: https://archive.md/2gusa