Why the U.S. is poised for soccer success

As measured by FIFA points, the U.S. seems to come fairly close to satisfying the criteria needed.

This is from a paper by Eva Marikova Leeds and Michael A. Leeds, given at the Eastern Economics Association Conference, February 2007, New York, NY.

Using OLS and Poisson regressions, we corroborate previous studies and find that success increases with income, population, and having hosted a World Cup competition. We also find that a country’s political institutions and colonial heritage affect its soccer performance. In particular, being a wealthy democracy adds greatly to soccer performance. We also find that the success of a country’s club teams is a good predictor of the national team’s success. We conclude that club success reflects a nation’s willingness and ability to finance soccer success.

The full link can be found here:
http://www.holycross.edu/departments/economics/RePEc/spe/Leeds_Soccer.pdf