How the world Cup teams would look without immigrants

[Time]

http://www.businessinsider.com/world...ampaign=buffer

[Tilla]

Interesting the writer didnLt do a comparison on England.

Looking at the Ecuador team, I am noting the heavy influence of players of African descent, although people of African descent make up less than 8% of the population.

[Peter R]

I'm curious though, about this "of African descent" category for South Americans... aren't they, except for indigenous persons, descended mainly from places elsewhere?? Aren't some of those South Americans "of Spanish or Portuguese (or other country) descent"?

Where would the Jamaican team stand were we to field a team minus snow-ballers? aren't the vast majority of our players (if not all) of African descent?

Is it that after a certain number of generations you're no longer considered of "African descent"?? curious IMO.

[Stonigut]

Ecuador is populated heavily with people of indigenous origin, inca etc and due to diet, location the Spanish DNA influence not being as strong or European immigration not being as strong as elsewhere the average height and size of ecuadorians is pretty small, thus the main population to pull on for the team to have a real competitive team would be those of african origin and literally there is a trail from jamaica all the way down that side over the last four hundred years. Culturally as well the Afro pop is probably more in tune with football culture.

Apparently the major railway line between Quito at 9000 plus feet down to the coast was built by immigrant labor 4000 of which were Jamaicans, this happened between 1897 and 1908 a time when Jamaicans were looking for work and spreading to every corner to find opportunity.

[Me]

Most of those players come from the same region.

Not sure why the term of African Decent would lead to any confusion for anyone.

[Tilla]

PeterR, I do not make up the descent thing, so I cannot answer your last question. Not my area of expertise.

The fact is though that most Blacks roots can be traced back to Africa, irrespective of current nationality. I have read of cases where DNA studies are uses to trace one's roots back to some specific area or tribe in Africa. And this is after centuries of their parents and foreparents living outside of Africa.

I guess sometimes nationality tends to blurr the race lines here. The Snow ballers who play for Jamaica would have their roots traced through Jamaica (which is recent) and to some section of West Africa which could stretch centuries. Hell, DNA studies are actually being used to link early Chinese to Africa much more than people who you can readily identify as of African descent.

[Islandman]

Of African descent usually means, for most practical discussions, that you have indigenous African ancestors within the last millennia.

Latin Americans of African descent are a funny set of people though, especially the mixed ones. Many of them will say they are "not black" even when they are clearly the descendants of African slaves.

[Islandman]

Rhatid is this the same man who scoffed at the fast twitch muscle theory as it relates to sprinting talent ?

Are you suggesting that indigenous Americans are not as genetically suited to play ball at the world level as Europeans and Africans are? Say it ain't so Stonigut. That is a claim that goes way past anything I have been willing to accept.

X, where are you?

[Peter R]

My point was specific to the article where the writer says : "Person so and so is of African descent" and in the context of his article it means he borderline a player that would not be kept. The writer does not make that distinction for any other ethnicity or race or whatever you want to call it.

If a man is sixth or seventh generation Ecuadorian and of African descent, why single that out versus sixth or seventh generation person of Spanish descent??? I don't get it?!

[Tilla]

I will let you take up that point with the author, as he can more likely answer your question on borderlining people of African descent.

The point I made about an Ecudorian team in which I could see about 80% of the starting 11 being of African descent. It is clearly evident that these guys are of African descent, irrespective if they are 6th or 7 generation Ecudorians. Ecudorian defines their nationality, I was identifying their ethnic origin by referencing their African ancestory.

[Gamma]

As Peter Tosh seh, don't care where yuh come from as long as you're a black man you're an African.

It's something like that.

[Stonigut]

Islandman yuh moving too fast, I never scoffed at fast twitch, it has a role no doubt but not as big as everybody thinks. I believe what I said very clearly is that if is just fast twitch alone do it then every country with fast twitch dominant population would
Be doing the same as Ja. That is not true, so Brazil with all it's resources and close to 100 million west Africans in the DNA pool has not shown much sprint wise with that size population with the resources they have, Cuba with an Afro population almost twice the sizeof the Ja population has shown lots of potential but not as much results per capita as Ja, Haiti with three times the same population with very similar almost pure west african stock like Ja has shown nada, Dominican with a greater mix but predominantly west african has shown a little but nothing like jamaica.

I won't even bother to talk about the west Africans from Senegal to Angola is probably 200 million fast twitchers and that whole population vannot match jamaica with 1% of that population so fast twitch is a part of it but it is the lazy man explanation.

Now back to Ecuador, have you seen the people there the men of indigenous ancestry are probably average height of under 5'5" and weight of one forty, million like that picking out of that population makes it hard to find enough players to be competitive on the world stage so the mixtures, spaniard and african ancestry does come to the fore, is pretty straightforward actually.

[Islandman]

Nobody said that fast twitch ALONE or even MOSTLY explains Jamaicas success in sprinting. The argument has always been about the dominance of the West African gene pool in sprinting regardless of what nation is represented. What most of us say is that without fast twitch in the West African gene pool that kind sprinting dominance would not be possible, including Jamaicas success.

Your theory of height and weight to predict football talent is on much more shaky ground in my view.

[Stonigut]

What I hear everybody squawking is the importance of fast twitch and the slavery angle, some of our supposedly well educated high profile people, instead of focusing on what we have different that all the other west Africans such as the competitive English based athletic cultural infrastructure, especially the high school system and then what we have developed on top of that vertical integration of the competitive culture in every nook and cranny of the school system and beyond, then the tertiary development then the post tertiary development with track clubs. There is a lot of places to 'big up' rather than coming back to fast twitch which basically says we are just some animals with better running genes, so no hard work, tradition have anything to do with the success.

Hey on Ecuador lets do the reverse engineering on that how does less than three percent of the country's population account for more than 95% of the team no amount of bias can account for that! In this case the physical stock plays a massive role as well as a strong cultural input over the years of Afro ecuadorians being involved in football.