I sometimes wonder how much better american baseball would be if they developed players the way soccer does in europe.
If you are from a poor family in london and you show elite soccer potential, you are going to get elite coaching until you fail. People fall through the cracks but not that many.
The american system is fantastic for the olympics as the high school and college system especially just puts money into sports that other countries can't compete with. But i think there is a reason that even though they have huge soccer playing numbers, that they still kind of suck. European countries are just better at developing soccer talent.