In typical Realist fashion, Dan Drezner wonders why the world’s greatest powers aren’t dominant in the world’s greatest sport. The U.S. is just a modest soccer power. China and Russia didn’t even qualify. Even the USSR during its heydays was not consistently great on the pitch.
Drezner’s main explanation is that great powers have proud civilizational identities (and thus their own sports) while lesser powers presumably do not. I don’t buy it. Most countries have their own proud cultures and their own sports (korfbal anyone?). Moreover, I wonder why Drezner feels the need to move away from Realism? As one would expect of a theory that has dominated world politics since the dawn of days, there is a way out if the facts don’t seem to add up.
Soccer success is all about prestige. Superpowers have no incentive to put their prestige on the line by putting 11 men on a field against 11 other men, arbitrated by a neutral referee. As Schelling would remind us, if you invest strongly in soccer, you put your reputation on the line. Why do that with so few opportunities to rig the result? If you sit on top, you organize a tournament, invite a few hapless Canadians, and call the winners World Champions. Or, you do what China does: invest heavily in those sports with many Olympic medals and relatively little competition. If you are a middle power, however, winning the World Cup is the closest thing to being on top of the world.