Back in 1993, Bora Milutinović offered a succinct diagnosis of the American men’s soccer player: “This is the problem with these people: they don’t have a problem.”
What the then-US men’s national team head coach meant, presumably, is that making it in soccer wasn’t existential for American players, as it is for many others worldwide. Milutinović and his two brothers had been orphaned by the second world war and clawed their way to the Yugoslav national team and gainful professional careers. The players in the Serb’s care at that time, by contrast, never had to worry about feeding themselves.
