Why top talents ever are only from Brazil and Argentina?

Yeah, the mixed ethnicity aspect was what I was getting at re: Hamilton, and Tigana too. Tigana's case is different in the sense that Mali hasn't the same supply line to France as Suriname had to the Netherlands of course, but in essence in terms of ethnicity it's the same, and he was born in Mali (French Sudan) so there is the aspect whereby he could equally be said to have been 'poached' I suppose (not that that argument would make a lot of sense, especially with his Mum being French).

I'm not sure how aware I ever was of Winter's ethnicity actually, but it's interesting as actually if there is any ethnicity which might appear to be less suited to produce top football players (as opposed to Cricket players for example), perhaps Indian would be in that category (and Chinese too - apparently he is partly racially Chinese also?) - not to go back on my statement that talented players can come from anywhere, and not only to focus on technique with this thinking but general suitability for elite football proficiency (but I'm sure too that Cricket being such a popular and widely played traditional sport of India, and football not being will be playing a part too in restricting potential supply line of players into the sport).

Like I say France had plenty of immigrants starring for their national team (with both European and African roots and/or upbringing), and to be fair England has had a lot too at this point (if including children of immigrants, who are English...just like Van Dijk was born in Breda, Gullit in Amsterdam etc). People don't suggest Viv Anderson should have played for a West Indian national team (Trinidad & Tobago?), or that Ian Wright should have played for Jamaica for example (and any that once did would have been considered racist probably). The difference would be the numbers related to Suriname specifically I suppose, but I don't see that it is much different really is it?

 

The funny thing is those people react that way by the looks of the players like very obvious with black ancestry. The number of players who look white, but are mixed too are being skipped from the equation.

 

I am not going to say I agree with all the conclusions this video has made or the general message they are trying to encourage/spread. That's another story.

That being said, I also don't think I agree that there's nothing to talk about here.

There are only about 1 million Surinamese on the planet. For such a small group of people, to produce this number of footballers competing at this level? Something is up. I don't think the explanation is simple (others in this thread have explained why simple "its just genetics" doesn't work here), but there's something.

I don't think the lesson here is "all the Dutch-Surinamese should be playing for Suriname and the fact that they're not is injustice". I think the lesson is "if we could really improve the way talent is developed within Suriname, maybe there's a lot of potential there".

That's the same lesson I take from the fact that Jamaicans in England are so overrepresented in England's higher tiers of club football and youth/senior national sides. it's just a reminder of how much better Jamaica itself could be with better football infrastructure in place and a more serious cultural approach to the game. They are just showing us what our real ceiling is with the right football culture, infrastructure and resources.

I'd love for more top-tier English-Jamaicans to represent Jamaica, but that's not a fair or realistic expectation. The fair expectation is "what can we learn from the English-Jamaican example to better improve how we develop players at home". And I think it's the same for Suriname. The Dutch Surinamese are just showing the ceiling of what Surinamese can do in football - what can they learn to get closer to that ceiling at home?

 

That something is pretty simple, just as it applies to the Moroccans.
The number of quality players from Surinam descent, including the mixed Dutch ones comes from a small number of Surinam exiles, in total 150,000.
The same you see in the Dutch Moroccan population, about 350,000. In this group (same as in Belgium, France and Spain) where the number of quality players by far outstretch per 100,000 those in the homeland.
If Morocco itself would produce pro rata the same number of top players as those in exile, Morocco would be a world power in soccer.
It simply comes down to the access to superior scouting and development in those exile countries, especially in the Netherlands.
It isnot rocket science, nothing mysterious about. Nobody was talking about white genetics when the Dutch rose to power in the 1963 - 1978 era from a miniscule population compared to the football powers in those days. Nobody started to yap about white Dutch genetics to explain it.
We simply, especially in those days, had a dense network of amateur clubs where almost every kid was a member of. It's almost impossible in those days not to get noticed if you had any talent. It's the Dutch pyramid's base. If other countries would have the same pyramid, the number of top talents in the world would go through the roof.

This!!!!

 

It’s been a bit since I watched that video, but I don’t think the point was that Suriname as a country developed great talent. It seems obvious that all or virtually all of the relevant players were developed as talents in the Netherlands itself. I think the point was just that people of Surinamese descent have been abnormally good compared to what you’d expect given their small population. This is a country with roughly the population of Malta or Montenegro. You really wouldn’t expect so many great players to be from there or have direct/recent ancestry from there. I’m sure there’s a ton of factors that have led to that (including some random luck of the draw, I imagine), but one element is surely that the Netherlands has a really good system set up for developing talent. So I don’t really see that video as being an attack on the Netherlands. It’s more just marveling at the surprising fact of such a small country having so many great players either be from there or have direct/recent ancestry there.

 

The Champions League goals by nationality (1992 - december 2021)
(two overlapping sources, these numbers are correct - main tournament, excl. qualifying rounds)





Uruguay is on 126 goals for this period.

I appreciate that the starting position of Brazil is not the same as e.g. Spain (with sometimes 5 CL teams in) and many top players join Europe at a later age, but even compared to Argentina and Uruguay they don't stand out so much if you adjust for (young) population. Also when you take away Messi for Argentina (take away both Suarez and Cavani, together 62 goals, is a bit different because behind them comes Pandiani with 12 and Forlan with 6). In average Elo and so on Brazil is far ahead of them, true.

In this period 'we' are funnily ahead of much larger England. It did not stop these corners from putting out takes about how bad we have become and that we need to be frozen out of the Champions League entirely, create various 'modern great players' lists where they're afterthoughts and behind the best players from every other football country worth their salt (including Uruguay, Croatia, Portugal). Whether it is FourFourTwo or the alliance/pseudoprofessors.

Say that for long enough and it becomes material reality. If you continue to conspire and divide all the money among yourself, suck our football dry (steal all the coaches and under-16 forwards, where they are foils for your own Mainoos and Fodens or Spaniards in the Barcelona academy, something that Xavi Simons noticed well), then it becomes automatically real.

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Just two examples from 2008 (before I joined, but when I was already reading, I don't forget the back catalogue):
Champions League Revamp. | BigSoccer Forum
What has happened to German and Dutch football? | BigSoccer Forum


Ballon d'Or positions for Oranje players since 2000:

2001: N/A
2002: Van Nistelrooij 13th, Makaay 24th
2003: Van Nistelrooij 6th, Makaay 13th
2004: Van Nistelrooij 9th
2005: N/A
2006: N/A
2007: Van Nistelrooij 6th, Seedorf 19th, Van Persie 30th
2008: Van der Sar 24th, Van Nistelrooij 24th
2009: N/A
2010: Sneijder 4th, Robben 14th
2011: Sneijder 12th,
2012: Van Persie 9th
2013: Van Persie 7th, Robben 8th
2014: Robben 4th
2015: Robben 22th
2016: N/A
2017: N/A
2018: N/A
2019: Van Dijk 2nd, De Jong 11th, De Ligt 15th, Wijnaldum 26th
2020: not held
2021: N/A
2022: Van Dijk 16th
2023: N/A
2024: N/A (first semi-finalist ever without nomination)

Someone as De Bruyne also had to wait for a long time before he was anywhere close to the top five (2022 and 2023), when he was 31 years old... somehow French speaking Belgians seem to fare better? (while in truth, the Belgian top footballers come disproportionally from the north. Also for that reason the national team coach was for a long time from the Dutch speaking part, until 1999)