This morning (or last night, depending on which side of the Atlantic you live) history was made. The United States Men’s National Team (USMNT) was knocked out of the Copa America after finishing third in their group. They are the first ever hosts of the Copa America to be knocked out in the groups since they were introduced. One win and two defeats; one was to a pre-tournament favourite (and my favourite) Uruguay, the other to Panama. As a Brit who frequently gets reminded that independence from Britain is the most common holiday in the world, it is nice to see America get humbled by what used to be their canal.

Ah, America. The only nation that can match the English for arrogance. At times over the last decade, the ‘Special Relationship’ has felt less like standing shoulder to shoulder against totalitarianism and more like a really bad Thelma and Louise parody. After the Panama defeat, I saw so many American commentators and fans seething at how the Panamanians played, that the ref had robbed them, and (amazingly) that they would beat Uruguay because the USA was genuinely a better team than Uruguay. That’s Uruguay who have won two (or four) World Cups, the joint most Copa America titles, have the continent’s most in-form striker, a manager seemingly hellbent on getting revenge against all who have mistreated him, and who beat both Brazil and Argentina in the space of a few months. That Uruguay.

But is that arrogance misplaced? America has a population of over 300 million. They produce a ridiculously large amount of talented athletes in almost every sport they compete in, and the financial power (in sponsorship revenue, TV ratings, prize money, and overall economic scale) means that anyone with enough raw talent or a passing interest can easily find a venue or coach to hone their craft. On top of that, a large population with a seemingly infinite amount of TV channels means that there will always be someone watching, whether they are someone with a passion for the sport or a channel surfer.

Baseball, basketball, American football, hockey, golf, boxing, MMA, cheerleading, gymnastics, athletics, aquatics. The USA dominates.

So why not football? Why is it that when Americans say they could win the World Cup in the next ten years, or when they said that the USMNT would beat the Netherlands at the last World Cup, the rest of the world laughs at them? Because America doesn’t produce footballers. They produce people who play football.

Firstly, football is ubiquitous all over the world. When I was growing up, every chance you got, you would play football. The classic sight of school blazers and bags thrown together to make goalposts is one familiar to every British schoolchild. Even during Ramadan, our teachers allowed us to play football at our own pace. Football filled every sporting niche for me.

It doesn’t in America. Need something that can be played anywhere with any rule system or team size, even on the streets? Pick-up basketball. Need something to be played at school through varying age groups with a clear pathway from amateurism to the pros? American football. Need a big spectator sport to bring the masses into one place of escapism? Baseball, America’s pastime. Every aspect that football fills in the rest of the world, some other sport already fills it in the States.

Secondly, and we can’t get around it, is prejudice. The most common groups that play and are interested in football are either first-generation immigrants or immigrant communities that still have strong non-American identities. In the early 20^th Century they were Germans, Italians, and Eastern Europeans; in the 21^st it’s Latin Americans. Football is seen as an immigrant game, an attitude not too dissimilar to America’s colonial cousin in Australia.

Moreover, football is seen as a women’s game. The gender barriers are breaking down, but there is still that barrier. I, with my weaker European mind, still do not understand why there is a differentiation between baseball and softball. They are basically the same game, with only the gear and pitching action seeming to be the main difference. When I ranted about this to my American partner, ending it by saying that the only tangible difference seemed to be that one was for men and the other was for women, they agreed with me. I suspect – and this is purely my own opinion – that to some, football/soccer is still seen as a game women and girls play, while men stick to the likes of NFL and basketball (look at the discourse surrounding the WNBA).

Finally, the youth system in America completely misses the point. Firstly, it’s on a pay-to-play basis. That means, instead of children being enrolled in charity programs or scouted by academies and being brought into a footballing ecosystem at a young age, families have to pay thousands of dollars to enrol their children into clubs. One of the greatest experiences in my early teens was taking part in a week-long goalkeeping course put on by West Ham at one of their training facilities in East London. All it cost me was a £30 enrolment fee and the public transport fare to get me there. These types of courses help get you into the training process and possibly allow you to break into that footballing process. I could not imagine my family, or any British family, paying the eye-watering amounts that American soccer requires.

Beyond the financials, the youth set-up in America also starts too late. If you look at the USMNT starting 11 against Panama, most of the players joined their youth teams in the mid-teens, around fifteen to sixteen years old. This is simply far too late. Most people in Europe get enrolled into academies when they’re 10; some communities have under-8s and under-5s teams. You get them playing early, and you get them playing often. No one expects these players to immediately be excellent, but you start building in the fundaments of technique and teamwork, while also letting them have fun.

You can already see this in the current USMNT. Christian Pulisic, the current American captain, was enrolled into a youth team when he was about seven and then scouted by German talent factory Borussia Dortmund. Folarin Balogun, America’s next big thing at 23 years old, spent over a decade working and growing through the ranks of the Arsenal youth apparatus. But these are the exceptions. Pulisic comes from a football-mad family, and Balogun is an Englishman who chose to play for the US when it became clear that he wouldn’t be called up to England. The rest of the USMNT got into football in their mid-teens.

One of my mates has a theory that USMNT players are failed athletes. Sprinters who weren’t quite fast enough, basketball players who didn’t go through a growth spurt, NFL players who couldn’t bulk up. Players who were talented and wanted to play sport, but couldn’t get the one they wanted to. So their parents, who could afford it, shoehorned them into a sport where they learnt the cold mechanics, but not the soul. It’s only a theory, one which I think unfairly belies the growing popularity of football in the States. But it is true that until the USA has a fundamental shift in its relationship with football, it will continue to be its biggest laughing stock even as it hosts the next World Cup.