Not sure if this is a common phenomenon, but here are a couple of cases when a player arrived in Europe and promptly shrank: Junior Agogo MLSnet 6'0 nationwide.co.uk 5'9 Joe-Max Moore MLSnet 5'9 (176 cm) Everton FC 5'8 (170 cm, which is actually 5'7) I started wondering if English teams tend to be more finicky about listed heights when Ian Bishop was playing for Miami, and he seemed a bit taller than most of the other "5'9" guys around. The reason I bring it up now is that I noticed on 4thegame that Bocanegra (now 5'11) and McBride (now 6'0) each seem to be about an inch shorter these days. However, Fulham's official site keeps them at their US listings, so maybe 4thegame was a little sloppy in its metric conversion.
I would say that it's probably the metric conversion. Although, I know that guards in basketball often have their height exaggeration.