There's a perception that football - or soccer, if you're from the place this list is actually referring to - isn't taken as seriously as other sports in the United States, that the talent pool isn't all that impressive considering the size of the country.
Clearly, that's not the case, especially when factoring in that the men's team has reached the knockout stages of four of the last eight World Cups, qualifying for every tournament since 1990 bar one, while the women's side have won an astonishing four World Cups in just eight attempts.
