中国如果取消高考和独生子女,足球虽然不能世界前列,跟美国日本一样常年去世界杯打酱油是可能的,当年中国刚刚改革开放的时候,打日本足球是没有问题的。
中国7-16岁少年常年踢球(每周不少于2次1小时)人数不超过一万(还没有加拿大多),平均每年龄段1000人,虽然每年有增减,最多不超过5万人。
而美国足球已经第2 popular 运动,
There are 4.2 million players (2.5 million male and 1.7 million female) registered with U.S. Soccer.
[31] As of 2012, thirty percent of American households contain someone playing soccer, a figure second only to baseball.
[32]
Increasing numbers of Americans, having played the game in their youth, are now avid spectators. The annual ESPN sports poll has shown soccer as the fourth most popular team sport in the United States every year since overtaking hockey in 2006;
[33] as of 2011, 8.2% of Americans rank soccer as their favorite sport (compared to 3.8% for hockey).
[34] A 2012 Harris Interactive poll showed soccer to be the fifth favorite team sport, with 2% of Americans ranking soccer as their favorite (compared to 5% for hockey).
[35] A 2011 ESPN sports poll ranked soccer as the second most popular sport in the country for 12- to 24-year-olds.[36] In 2013,
Lionel Messi became the first soccer player ever to rank among the Top 10 most popular athletes in the U.S. in an ESPN poll,
[37] although he was not listed in the Top 10 in a Harris poll.
[38] A 2017 poll by Gallup found that soccer is nearly as popular as baseball with 7% of Americans saying it is their favorite sport, as opposed to 9% for baseball.[39]