> Yeah, this difference occurred to me while traveling in rural Mexico. To play soccer all you need is a ball. So you can go into the poorest villages that have little in the way in infrastructure and all the kids are playing soccer in the dirt road or a random field, etc.

The same is true in Argentina. And in school kids play almost every recess too.

A lot of very prominent player from Argentina had this kind of humble beginning too.

It’s also “the sport”. Americans don’t really do casual sports anymore and there is a ton of competition in the various leagues.

In many parts of the US, soccer is a fall sport that competes with football in school leagues. Football teams require a small army of players and tend to suck out the oxygen. It doesn’t help that there’s no little league equivalent for soccer, so there’s a ton of pay to play BS to a much greater degree than football or baseball.

In my area, you need to commit to a full year travel soccer team that’s often owned by the school coach to get any playtime in high school.