by 32 different nationalities are represented in the Guardian’s list of the 100 best footballers in the world for 2023. A player from Norway – a country of just 5 million people – who has another player inside the Top is claiming the top spot. 20. In the Top 100, there are Georgians, Guineans and even Canadians. No American anywhere, though.
In one way, that’s not surprising. Many American soccer players have made a name for themselves at a high level, and they continue to do so, but the country has famously – or infamously – never produced a true superstar of the sport. USA is still waiting for its billboard icon. Until now, Lionel Messi is the biggest soccer star in the country. But why? Surely it is reasonable to expect to see one American in a list of the top 100 players in the world?
This was meant to be a golden generation of American soccer talent, after all. If the failure of the US men’s national team to qualify for the 2018 World Cup was an embarrassment in the modern era of the sport in the country, this current cycle was supposed to be a glorious resurrection led by some of the best American players in the history.
It was meant to be Christian Pulisic the any. And while the 25-year-old is certainly playing at a high level for AC Milan, one of Italy’s biggest clubs, his career hasn’t quite panned out in the way most expected when he joined in Chelsea on a €64m deal done by Pulisic. the most expensive American soccer player in history by far. Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia described the 20-year-old as “one of the most popular young players in Europe”. It wasn’t hyperbole.
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Pulisic was ranked 77th in the Guardian’s 2017 list of the 100 best male players. In 2018, he slipped back to 246th place and only three judges from 2018 placed him in their Top 40. At this point, Pulisic has not made the Top 100 in five years.
Injuries hampered Pulisic at Chelsea, however, as did the club’s uncertain managerial situation and the specific appointment of Thomas Tuchel who used a system that did not have a natural place for the American winger in his team. Talent was never a concern, but Stamford Bridge was not the right environment for that to emerge. Chelsea never used Pulisic as they should have.
It was a similar story for Sergiño Dest, the Dutch-born US international who joined Barcelona from Ajax in 2020 as one of the best young right-backs in the world. Signed at the request of Ronald Koeman, Dest ended up playing under three different managers in his first year at Camp Nou and failed to adapt to the demands of Xavi Hernández who quickly dismissed him from the first team. Now on loan at PSV, Dest is rebuilding his career back in the Netherlands, where he has been a mainstay for the Dutch league leaders.
Gio Reyna was another American youngster who was widely seen as destined for the top, but injuries prevented him from taking a starting place at Borussia Dortmund. Still only 21 years old, Reyna could yet appear in the Guardian’s Top 100 at some point in the future, but her career thus far has mirrored that of so many Americans who have not fulfilled their elite-level potential.
Some people blame the cornerstone of American soccer for this. The country’s ‘pay to play’ youth system often prioritizes profit over player development and has opened the door to outsiders who may not have the best interests of US sport at heart – see how Barcelona and Juventus rely on American youth academies. more like money schemes than real efforts to produce talent.
Related: What’s wrong with Gio Reyna at Borussia Dortmund?
Others point to the relative immaturity of American soccer culture to explain the situation. Major League Soccer is only 27 years old. Before 1990, the USMNT went 40 years without playing at the World Cup. Soccer as a whole is still not seen through the mainstream prism of other American sports. Culturally, other countries – even much smaller ones – are decades ahead of the US.
And yet the USA has more young registered soccer players than any other country in the world. Studies consistently show interest in soccer at an all-time high – a 2019 Gallup poll found 31% of Americans call themselves soccer fans. The USMNT is also ranked the 11th best in the world by FIFA – well ahead of Norway, Georgia, Guinea and Canada. And the US women’s national team has many world-class stars (11 of the Guardian’s top 100 soccer players in 2022 were American).
The USMNT’s stars play across Europe’s biggest leagues, and receive the best training practices from some of the best coaches in the game – a contrast to the insularity of the USWNT’s top stars. The women’s team continues to boast world-class talent, despite calls for players to look to move to Europe’s biggest clubs to get the national team back on track.
It is difficult to explain why the USA has struggled to produce male players among the best in the world, often resulting in the lazy, similar to the oft-quoted but still incorrect opinion that it will not America has been able to compete on the world stage so far. its best athletes play soccer and not other sports like basketball and football. If physicality was the deciding factor, Adama Traoré would have won more Ballon d’Ors than Messi.
The next few years will be a crucial period for soccer in America, with Messi now leading the domestic league and the 2026 World Cup looming – the United States will also host the Copa América this summer, the World expansion Club in 2025 and the 2028. Summer Olympics. If the United States of America is to one day become a true superpower in the sport, this is the time for it to happen. However, it will take a generation or two for any lasting legacy to emerge, certainly in the production of talent.
Perhaps the lack of players in the top 100 in the US is due to bad luck and unfortunate timing. Would Pulisic be considered if he chose Liverpool over Chelsea and remained injury free? Probably. Is there a chance that Folarin Balogun on his current trajectory will make it in the next few years? Maybe. Ultimately, however, America may be waiting for Messi or Erling Haaland to make their own career.
