Pele had the luxury of growing up in the football infested atoms of Brazil and taking part in some Futsal tournaments which helped him grow, he also started playing for Santos when he was 15.
How many other peles there are who didn't get the chance to shine?let's not go on a case by case basis and look at the cold hard numbers, Europe has a 700 million population , Africa has 1.2 billion and a much much younger population to draw from(in fact I wouldn't be surprised if the under 20 number of people in Africa is triple of that in Europe and yet their output is much inferior to Europe hell the number of players with African origins in Europe who actually make it seems to be at a much higher ratio compared to their folk back in Africa, doesn't this make the case of how important infrastructure is and how inferior Africans are at it?
All it does is make the case that something is different in Europe from Africa. What the factor is, we can only make hypotheses about. I don't think its infrastructure but I could be wrong. I just think if it were infrastructure then far fewer Africans would make it to Europe at all.
Infrastructure is clearly not the only possible factor here. In fact, as I've pointed out, there are so many young Africans working as professionals in some field or other, who clearly should be out playing football. I'll tell you from personal experience, I know players who were destined for the top but had to quit football because the pay would leave you destitute.
I'd argue that this narrowing of the talent pool is the critical factor.
I know of players who played in the national youth teams one year, and two years later were working in banking. They had to leave football to make a living. When you have thousands of players vying for say 10 slots to Europe, you'd know that your chances are slim.
If you come from a middle class home, no matter how good you are, you have a very short window of opportunity within which to play football and make it big. You're not going to keep on playing, even at the highest level, for $50 or nothing in some cases. So anyone who has the slightest prospects, or who has mouths to feed and an opportunity to do so, is simply not going to hang around playing football.
Invariably corruption then comes into play. you need to bribe coaches to get into teams regardless of how good you are. Incidentally, that's why David Alaba didn't play for Nigeria. He tried to get in and refused to pay the bribe.
There are so many less visible factors pushing real talent away from opportunities.
You don't have that kind of pressure in Europe. African families who would never let their kids play football in Africa move to Europe and suddenly let them loose because they know there is a safety net and the risk is much lower.
But look, lets also compare output in real terms.
The sheer number of Africans who make it to play football in Europe is staggering, for a continent that supposedly doesn't produce good footballers.
You'd have to realise that an African player only gets selected by a European team if there's not better European player for the position. Naturally, that suggests that there are many more Africans who could play at the same level as most European top flight players but can't get there because being good enough is not enough.
Most European leagues also have foreign player caps.
So in that context, do the number show poor output from Africa, or do they show exceptional output in light of the barriers to entry?