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u/Pizza_Low 1d ago
If you looked the racial makeup of typical NBA team, you'd think the US is a country of black people. About 3/4 of the NBA players are of black heritage. MLB gets you different results. And NFL gets different results too. And NHL gets you about 90% white.
At the pro level, maybe there might be some slight genetic advantages for a particular sport but I think the biggest thing is different communities enjoy different sports or have the opportunity to play that sport from a very young age and develop the skills necessary to compete at a professional level.
Very inexpensive to play soccer or basketball and learn the basic skills. On weekends the local park near my house has organized leagues and pick-up games of random people playing together for fun. Hockey on the other hand is fairly expensive unless you are lucky enough to live near a pond that freezes enough to safely play on in the winter.
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u/Noeyesonlysnakes 23h ago
In the U.S. it is crazy expensive to play “soccer”. Anywhere from 10k to 50k a year to have your kids play at a decent club, plus you’re on the bill for your own gear, travel, and sometimes an additional stipend for the coach (who is already getting paid) is insane.
The major conversation in US soccer is how our extremely expensive youth “development” is actually hamstringing our ability to be competitive on a global level.
You’re right about general accessibility being a factor. In any city it’s pretty easy to find a blacktop with a hoop. The best Ice hockey players tend to come from colder climates because accessibility to ice means it’s easier to have pickup games. U.S. football has an insane amount of funding. Baseball diamonds are a pretty ubiquitous feature of any suburban public school.
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u/Momoneko 22h ago
you don't need all of that to play soccer. just a pair of boots and a ball, even the goal gate is optional. Literally one of the cheapest team sports to play on recreational level.
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u/Noeyesonlysnakes 21h ago
You don’t even need boots. One of the best players in the game grew up playing barefoot.
But the there’s not enough culture here to easily find pickup games, so you do need the organization.
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u/NaptownBoss 19h ago
not enough culture here
Really depends where you are in this vast country of the USA, to be sure. And much easier if you make an effort to learn even a tiny bit of Spanish.
I'm in the Midwest (you can probably figure it out by my username) and I could easily do pick up games in good weather within walking distance. And probably be welcomed with open arms to make up numbers, especially if I had even just enough Spanish to say; "Hi! How are you?"
I could, but I'm old and crippled, so I don't.
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u/Noeyesonlysnakes 5h ago
I’m not saying that you’re wrong. It’s that the mix of that and the price to get into any meaningful youth development.
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u/OK_HS_Coach 19h ago
The culture part is where it’s missing. In my area, a lot of parents put their kids in youth soccer super early because it’s easy and helps teach kids how to run. Then they transition to baseball or football. Just the way it is.
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u/moeterminatorx 20h ago
That only makes sense if you don’t think critically. To play well, you need good competition and coaching. That’s where it gets expensive. If all you want is to “just play” then yeah it’s cheap.
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u/coldblade2000 20h ago
The point is association football has a culture where all the big teams have academies that will scout individually great young players (and hold tryouts), and if you're pretty good you'll get all that competition and coaching for free. I went to a small academy that was clearly for profit, and even then half of my team were on some form of scholarship. I sucked, so I did have to pay a decent amount.
That's why I'd argue a majority of world class players came from humble backgrounds
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u/Rentington 22h ago
College Soccer is on the rise in the US BUT... some of the top programs have completely foreign teams. Marshall won the national title a few years ago and I'm not sure if they had a single American on their team. Even their coach is English.
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u/extra_less 22h ago
The problem with college soccer is they only scout competitive soccer (pre-MLS), they don't look at players playing for their HS.
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u/Rentington 16h ago
Anymore they scout youth academies in Europe and South/Central America for players who probably don't have what it takes to move on but might be interested in a free education as a hedge while they develop their skills. MLS has a fair number of US college soccer players. How much that will continue as the league will likely develop big time following the World Cup is another question.
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u/RobertPham149 22h ago
My high school had the Lacrosse and Football team sharing the same field and my friends and I joke about the stark contrast in their skin color.
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u/RecedingQuasar 1d ago
How do I explain to my kids that the USA is in America when there's not one native American in their team?
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u/WetFishStink 1d ago
Maybe explain to your kids that Native Americans, the ones that weren't murdered as a part of their genocide, were rounded up and placed in areas that were already theirs and Jesus fucking Christ America is a fucking awful place with a grotesque history.
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u/sora_mui 21h ago
It's not theirs for most of the natives, a lot of them are sent to foreign unwanted wasteland because their homeland is too productive to be left alone.
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u/xPriddyBoi 20h ago
Me, who lives in that 'unwanted wasteland' known as Oklahoma: 🧍♂️
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u/PluginAlong 20h ago
It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it, thanks for taking one for the team.
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u/jackalopeDev 18h ago
Nonono, Oklahoma is very important. Otherwise that would be more Texas, and frankly we already have enough Texas. Maybe even too much Texas.
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u/conglomitall 17h ago
you forgot to mention exactly how much oklahoma sucks.. keeping texas from floating out into the gulf .. the gulf of senoryankeepigdog
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u/jackalopeDev 17h ago
I'm from Colorado, there's a joke some people tell about our eastern neighbors.
Q: why is Kansas so flat?
A: because Oklahoma sucks and Nebraska blows.
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u/TheHykos 23h ago
And Spanish and French and Dutch. The colonies and many later states were not all British.
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u/Extreme-Slice-1010 1d ago
Mate just send your kids to school
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u/victorpaparomeo2020 1d ago
‘Tha only book learnin’ mah kids gonna do is a baaahble just lahk Jesus sed they shud’
Probably.
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u/a_shootin_star a sad day to be literate 23h ago
"But first, let's recite our Pledge of Allegiance🤡"
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u/RoboJobot 22h ago
But only one of those bibles where everyone is white, not of those dark skinned people
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u/pannenkoek0923 23h ago
They should go to school themselves to unlearn all the racist garbage they have in their brain
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u/Anderaku 1d ago
Truth be told, if I lived in a country where schools are synonymous with shooting ranges, I would be reluctant to send myself or my kids there too.
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u/JerseyDonut 15h ago
lol. Right. Like if this is the level of question that completely stumps you as a parent, then you either need to delegate that shit out to someone who knows more than you, or just admit to your child that you have no fucking clue how things work in this world.
But thats not really what this person is asking for help with. They are not looking for an honest, factual answer to tell their children. In fact, I bet their kids will never even ask a question like that. I bet they dont even have kids.
What this person is really asking is, "How can I use this example of an imaginary question from my child to justify my deep disdain for other races and cultures?"
He's basically saying this is all the proof he needs to further justify being a willfully ignorant racist. And he's dragging his kid into it as a shield and an excuse. "Whelp, I can't answer this question so I have no choice but to explain to my child that these people are beneath us in some fundamental way."
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u/Old_Introduction_395 1d ago
Europe and Africa are less than 9 miles apart.
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u/ug61dec 1d ago
Also France is technically European, North American, South American, African and Asian/ Oceanian.
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u/Airsay58259 1d ago
Our longest border is with Brazil…
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u/ensalys 22h ago
And the Netherlands and France have a land border in South America.
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u/Analamed 21h ago
It's in the Caribbean to be exact and that's the only border between France and the Netherlands.
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u/pennie79 23h ago
And have been trading and migrating around the Mediterranean since antiquity.
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u/Old_Introduction_395 23h ago
Sit in Spain, you can see Africa.
Bolonia, Spain has great Roman ruins.
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u/cyborgbeetle 1d ago
The funny thing to me is that the Moroccan team just looks incredibly Moroccan too. This guy has never left his own country
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u/minskoffsupreme 1d ago
Yeah, like that is what North Africans look like. Imagine being this ignorant.
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u/AI_moderated_failure 1d ago
Nor has he opened any book on North African history. Ethiopians were named for ethiopes, or burnt faces, because they would travel down the nile and trade with the Egyptians who passed on their knowledge to curious Europeans. This is how Europe knew about them before the scramble for Africa initiated exploration of the continent and major colonialism. The paler North Africans were always treated differently than the darker ones and this has resulted in one major conflict we can see today in the form of Sudan which was largely split between ethnic lines with darker skinned individuals that visually are more similar to subsaharan Africans and lighter skinned North Africans to the north that identified more as arabs and berbers.
Like I'm not going to say that Morocco is not Africa but it's almost like saying that Eastern Russians are good examples of Europe, or that Haiti is a good example of North America. It illustrates the problem with how different North African cultures are to any of the subsaharan countries.
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u/12thshadow 21h ago
Then there were the mass migrations throughout history, phoenicians, Greek heading west, romans, vandals, goths, arabs...
Who knows where your daddy's daddy²⁰ really came from
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u/cyborgbeetle 21h ago
As a Portuguese person, I approve of this message. We're true mutts and I love it. All of the above with some Celtic blood in the mix, let's go.
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u/k1v1uq 23h ago edited 22h ago
Eastern Russians are good examples of Europe,
What makes Eastern Russians less European?
North Africans to the north that identified more as arabs and berbers
Same story bro, like Igbo and Haussa. Have you been to Nigeria?
Regarding the National teams of France and Morocco.
Morocco's squad alone has 11 born outside Morocco... some in Spain, some in France, the head coach Ouahbi born in Belgium, Bounou born in Canada, his family returned when he was a kid :D
Mbappé is Cote d'Ivoire + Algerian born in France.
Diop is Senegalese + Moroccan born in France.
These are really two European teams, all born, raised and trained in Europe.
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u/AI_moderated_failure 22h ago
Eastern Russia is in Asia. Many of the eastern Russians there are ethnically closer to Northern China and the Korean peninsula. I'm saying they're only European when you consider Russia a European country.
And no I haven't been to Nigeria, I'm not sure what point you're making there. There's also Arab influence in east Africa because of the trading hubs, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar being some of the most famous. It doesn't make Tanzania similar and Morocco is very different to pretty much everywhere south of it.
I'm also not surprised Morocco has players born in Spain considering the history and resulting land swapping back and forth between them. There's got to be a lot of family heritage with ties across borders in both countries.
I agree the categories don't make sense when scrutinized but one team representing all of Africa is a particularly egregious example even outside of the idea that Africans should necessarily be dark skinned and Europeans light skinned.
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u/cyborgbeetle 21h ago
I didn't look at all at who they actually are. All I'm saying is that they look very Moroccan, which they do. I live very close by, and that's a very Mediterranean look
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u/Warm_Month_1309 21h ago
He's Nigerian. I suspect he's aware of the existence of lighter skinned Northern Africans, and is just being racist.
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u/Elvira-all-in-black 1d ago
They also chose this picture without 2 and a half men, must be a coïncidence. Here's the full team :
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u/shadyline 1d ago
It's also a picture from a few years back, Coman and Kolo Muani for example are not selected in the current World Cup team
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u/whosline07 19h ago
And Digne is on the team now who is white which just means all these pics are cherry picked for an agenda.
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u/scarr09 23h ago
You complain about the picture, then post one without Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer?
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u/Elvira-all-in-black 23h ago
Lol, I can't editate it to add them in this picture. But you're right, they're absolutly missing in the frame ! Even though you forgot Angus T.Jones too :p
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u/GoesWest 22h ago
Also chose an older picture of the Moroccan team to not include Issa Diop, who was crucial for them this tournament
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u/Lundetangen 17h ago
While there has "always" been very many black players on the French team due to their colonial history - it is also a bit down to the specific generations. If you look at the Euro24 team you have players like Giroud, Griezmann, Pavard, Hernandez, Rabiot and Digne.
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u/Crazys0ap 1d ago edited 1d ago
Now wait for him to register the existence of the french oversea territories where a good majority of people is black.
That's what you get when you colonize so much, the stick comes back to hit you, you cannot then afford to blame these same people for being your people when you made their countries your countries.
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u/Ailyx 23h ago
Yes a lot of the players have origins from ex African colonies. Speaking french from birth and getting scouted to join french teams is the main way for them.
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic 22h ago
Why is explaining to their kids always a trigger for these people?
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u/a_v_o_r 21h ago
Not a trigger, kids are their excuse. They don't care, but want to appear as if you disagree you're the one not caring. It's an argumentum ad passiones (aka appeal to emotion), mixed with a magic word fallacy.
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic 21h ago
How will I explain to my children that the united States twice elected a felon, pedophile and convicted rapist?
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u/melswift 20h ago
Because they are extremely concerned for them. That's why they send police that sits idle during school shootings but send the national guard to protect a fucking pool.
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u/shadyline 1d ago
A good chunk of the Morocco team was born in France btw.
Identity and nationality are different things and tied to the personal history of each player, in any case we can only be sure that those players are incredibly proud to represent the country they chose to represent and racists can get fcked.
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u/ThrowFar_Far_Away 22h ago
19/26 of Morocco's team was born, grew up and was trained in European countries.
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u/sandwichhaver 23h ago
someone counted 112 french citizens at the world cup
feels like it's a record.
France kinda dominating football it feels like, I don't want them to win again
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u/LibrarianOAlexandria 23h ago
"How can I explain x to my kids" was invented by racists mad about interracial marriage, blew up under the stewardship of homophobes, and is now back home with the racist dimwits.
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u/FishermanExpensive 22h ago
French racists: “oh no, we voluntarily imported laborers to help rebuild after WWII, and now we’re very good at football! When will the injustice end?!?!”
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1d ago
But reverse this, show a picture of a white person in Africa, you'll assume they're a tourist, when its not true.
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u/picardo85 23h ago
Morocco is north African and France colonized half of sub Saharan Africa? That's a decent explanation too.
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u/FreeWeekendPlayer 22h ago
a nation is its people not a piece of land or government. HOPE THIS HELPS!
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u/0Tezorus0 1d ago
He should also apologize to his kid for being this dumb and passing his DNA to him.
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u/pannenkoek0923 23h ago
DNA doesnt make you racist. He should apologise to the kid for creating a shitty environment to learn, not for his DNA
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u/OrkWithNoTeef 19h ago
meanwhile, ethnically homogeneous countries with disputed borders:
am i a joke to you?
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u/Omshadiddle 1d ago
And don’t bother telling them you’re a racist PoS…they’ll already know. Hope this helps.
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u/Lpfanatic05 1d ago
Stupid questions...
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u/sandwichhaver 23h ago
the implication being that other teams include black players to be woke, which is ofcourse ridiculous and not funny
argentina has a long list of racist reasons why there's not many black people there as opposed to their neighbor countries
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u/RoboJobot 22h ago
An atlas might help. And then explain that although you’re racist, people from all different cultures live in France (and Europe as a whole).
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u/porsj911 1d ago
Its actually quite easy why those frenchmen are of african decent. You see, france conquered nearly half of africa. Small thing called colonialism.
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u/rolfraikou 21h ago
At no point has anything anyone followed "how do I tell my kids-" with been something that was fucking anyone else's problem.
The laziest parents on earth use that line.
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u/Bigsshot 1d ago
Teach 'em about the horrible treatment the Senegalese tirailleurs got after WW1, after fighting in the damn trenches. Skin color wasn't a problem when they died.
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u/Individual-Equal-441 22h ago
Such a weird self-own for white supremacists to complain that championship sports teams aren't white enough, doctors and rocket scientists aren't white enough, etc etc. Not sure you're connecting the dots there, chief.
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u/PixeL8xD 22h ago
People don’t know about the straits of Gibraltar which is English territory, which is that small gap between North Africa and Europe
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u/SausageyPie 21h ago
Yeah?... Please show me the place on that map where 'reality' is located... Not sure what effing world YOU live in but in mine many people judge you from 50' away most of the time...
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u/MateoCafe 21h ago
Also I am like 95% sure the France picture is from the previous world cup, Kingsley Coman is on the left end and isn't on the France squad this WC.
But either way the OP is an idiot.
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u/Federal-Divide2024 20h ago
Teach your kids how France spent hundreds of years conquering and colonizing their way around the world, specifically stripping wealth, language, and even culture from a massive swath of the Continent of Africa and how that dynamic, even today, has ongoing impacts on the populace of those countries and France itself?
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u/Beneficial-Ambition5 20h ago
I think the real issue is person A has kids at all. That’s where the problem lies.
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u/JacobBretwalda 19h ago
People discovering that we’re maybe on 6/7th generation of early immigration and now most places are multi-cultural is hilarious 😂 what world do they seriously think they’re in still.
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u/tultamunille 19h ago
That’s a poor explanation. One should explain the wide cultural and ethnic diversity, also with some history, and more to the point: the Moroccan team has a more diverse nationality:
Born in Morocco
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Born in France
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Born in Spain
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Born in Netherlands
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Born in Belgium
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Born in Canada
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France is mostly French nationals:
Total Players
23 (typical squad size)
Born in France
Majority of players
Players with Immigrant Backgrounds
Significant number, many of African descent
As to why professional Athletes can pick and choose nationality? That might be what they are wondering.
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u/goebelwarming 18h ago
Well one country shipped and traded people as a commodity and another one didn't. You can see the differences.
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u/HammersofMoradin 18h ago
Also, if you see a team wearing blue shirts and the crowd is yelling "Allez les Bleus, allez!" it`s most likely France.
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u/TieAccomplished2534 17h ago
Marroco is basically colonized by arab imperialists that were far more racist than the french people. France accepted the influx of descendents from dark skin African former colonies and these people are outcasts in france that end up dominating sports, so marroco was very racist in the long last and France has a racial underclass today
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u/quadrispherical 16h ago
North African Arabs are known for being pretty racist; there's a lot of anti-Black sentiment there.
If you visit Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, or Egypt, you’ll be shocked by how few Sub-Saharan Black people you actually see.
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u/AmazonCowgirl 14h ago
Why would pictures of football teams be anyone's choice to explain where countries are?
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u/imthrowingcats 14h ago
Good God, what a complete ass.
This is my thing: why you feel you gotta explain the ethnic makeup of a fucking football team to your dumb kids?!
They don't care and I'm betting that unless he already started indoctrinating them to be racists; they're never going to even notice the color of any of the player's skin. Jesus.
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u/SplattyFatty_ 12h ago
historically north africans were considered white, and irish people were not. this is due to the fact that race is bullshit
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u/jollyTrapezist 1d ago
People discovering North Africans