Asia at the FIFA World Cup, Part 2 – The Best

As Thai football fans scratch around for a team to follow at the FIFA World Cup and the government scratches around for a billion baht to pay for it, what makes one country so good at the beautiful game, and the country next door bad? South Korea are the best at football in East Asia, with Japan not so far behind. Everyone knows this, but the mystery is why?

In football, what makes one country better than another is difficult to say, but that won’t stop people in bars all over the world during the next month from trying to decide exactly that. One good way to help you decide is to take part in The Thaiger’s 2022 World Cup predictor competition.

If you ask football fans which are the best footballing nations, historically there are really only three, Brazil, Germany, and Italy. They’ve been joined in the last 30 years by Spain and France, both of which were slightly laughable back in the 1970s.

So, why is France so much better than Turkey, Brazil better than China, and Uruguay more successful than Denmark?

The answer, according to researchers, is a combination of physical size, cultural heritage, diet, per capita GDP, overall GDP, luck, population size, a competitive local environment, eugenics, education, voodoo, government subsidies and God.

In the comments after articles like this, people often make suggestions about why some teams are so bad and what should be done. Answers usually involve blaming some mysterious force like the government or education system, “PE lessons are inadequate,” being a good example. This response ignores the fact that no footballer in the entire history of the game ever acquired any useful skills in a school PE lesson – useful mentors, yes: skills no. Brazil didn’t get where they are today by investing in education. Etonians are no better at football than they are at running economies.

Being rich as a country, family, or individual will not help your journey to World Cup glory, just look at Qatar, but The Thaiger’s World Cup wall chart just might. In fact, it will make it harder. Rich people do not play better football than poor people, nor vice versa. There is no evidence at all that a nation’s wealth affects the quality of its footballers. If finance were a key factor, then Singapore, and Norway would dominate. Likewise, if escape from poverty were a factor, then Chad, and Laos would be forces to be reckoned with.

If it was about population, then China, and India would have five World Cups each. Uruguay has two World Cups, both quite a long time ago. There are more than 30 cities in China with bigger populations than in Uruguay. Costa Rica, Wales, and Uruguay are all of a similar size.

The world’s tallest nation, the Netherlands, is something of a joke in world football, having come second in championships so often that no one seriously expects them to win anything, although they did win the Euros in 1988. It will be a great surprise if the Dutch don’t lose one of this year’s semi-finals. There is no evidence that physically big teams beat small ones, that fat players beat thin ones, or that there is an optimum size for a footballer, though being a little bigger than average seems to be an important factor.

Although an Asian country has never won one, the Korean Republic, and Japan have both qualified for the last seven and four World Cups respectively, and have impressed—especially when they hosted the spectacle in 2002.

While it’s not entirely all about money or physique, both are factors in footballing success. So why are South Korea, and Japan so much more successful than China, Thailand, and The Philippines?

In Soccernomics, Kuper and Szymanski put to bed the silly argument that poor people make better footballers because they are more determined to work harder for a better life. However, we know that poorer, less-educated people from rich countries make good footballers. But that does not make them poor.

Cristiano Ronaldo was “so poor” growing up, there was no space in his house for the washing machine, so it had to go on the roof. If you have a washing machine and a roof to put it on, you’re not poor, not in global terms.

Most footballers grow up with beds to sleep in and breakfasts to eat. Most go to school. Most footballers get “just enough” to eat regularly while they are growing up. There are very few Oxbridge millionaires playing in League 1, and even fewer Garinchas in the world. The key is not to be rich or poor, but to be just rich (or poor) enough.

Taller people tend to make it in sports, so countries with more tall people do a bit better. Until the world’s pigs and chickens were pumped full of growth hormones in the 1970s and 80s, people got tall by eating well. Since then, physical size has become a much less reliable indicator of physical prowess.

Football is a working-class game. A footballing career is usually an alternative to a life as an ordinary worker. The bigger and wealthier the working class, the more successful the footballing nation. Footballers don’t come from the middle classes. Nor do footballers do not escape from poverty. Footballers escape from proper jobs.

How does all this relate to the Korean Republic, and Japan?

Both Japanese and South Korean men are, on average, taller and wealthier than in other Asian countries. Korea has a small population in regional terms, but 50 million is not a small number.

So, if there is a secret to success, it’s a large working-class population with the stability to house and feed children adequately. Give them too much to eat, make their beds too soft and they have nothing to escape from. They need enough food to fulfil their physical potential but not enough to make them fat or freakish or both, Jack Grealish being the obvious exception.

If you want your country to succeed at football, you need hard workers, hungry for success, but not for food, with strong motivation to create better lives for themselves.

If you are a developing nation, that means better food and housing for your workers, not new boots and academies.

If you’re already rich, you’re going to need some immigrants.

If you’re not already rich, organise a sweep among friends and colleagues and scoop some loot with The Thaiger’s sweepstake kit.