“What do Maradona, Pelé, Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Cruyff have in common, apart from being consistently ranked among the greatest soccer players of all time? All were born and raised in countries with high per capita meat consumption, within low-income, working-class households. The central tenet of this document is that this is not a coincidence.”
Thus begins a study by two Argentine economists who have come to the conclusion that the fact that Argentina and Brazil produce great soccer players is due, above all, to eating meat. The work, published in English, bears the suggestive title: Making a Maradona: Meat Consumption and Soccer Prowess (Making a Maradona: meat consumption and soccer skills) and has been prepared by two Economics professors from the San Andrés University of Buenos Aires , Martin Rossi and Christian Ruzzier.
“It could not be a coincidence that you, in such a small strip of the world, have Pelé, Maradona, Messi, Di Stefano, Neymar, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Garrincha…”, Rossi explains by phone to La Vanguardia from the Argentine capital. “They are places where there are many niches of poverty, lower middle class, and where a lot of meat is consumed. Brazil is not a country where a lot of meat is consumed, but in the gaucho area, which is the area around São Paulo, it is a cattle-raising area, the south of Brazil, meat is cheap and a lot of meat is consumed. And the Argentine pampean zone too. In Argentina, a lot of meat is consumed and it is cheap”, indicates this economist, who currently works as vice-rector of the University of San Andrés.
The study that reveals the formula for building Maradonas and Messis was published before Argentina became world soccer champion in Qatar.
However, Rossi clarifies that soccer success occurs among a social class that does not correspond to extreme poverty, which in Latin America also has difficulties accessing a product such as meat, even in many areas of Argentina and Brazil, which They are among the top producing countries in the world.
“When we talk about poverty, we are not referring to extreme poverty, but to people with a high opportunity cost. Look at the case of Messi: he was not poor in the villa (misery), he was lower middle class, his father was working class, that is what I mean, ”says Rossi. “These are people who can eat, who do not have a level of extreme poverty,” he insists. “The level of extreme poverty nullifies absolutely everything,” he points out.
Rossi explains that “playing soccer requires you to have neural connections. You have a space in which you have to make quick decisions in changing contexts. Messi is making decisions all the time in changing situations that have to be fast and for that you need to have a highly developed brain”.
The researchers took into account nutritional aspects to reach their striking conclusions. “What the nutrition literature says is that in early childhood, when you eat a lot of meat” the brain and neurons develop much better. “It is true, in Spain they also eat a lot of meat and in Japan and in Luxembourg. So, it couldn’t just be that, it had to be something else. But when your brain develops, you can use it for many things: to study, to work or to play soccer. I am sure that in Japan the opportunity cost of boys is very high; If you have a developed brain, in Japan you should dedicate yourself to technology, be an engineer because you will earn a lot of money with little risk. In Spain, probably too”, concludes Rossi.
“If you have well-fed kids, they probably go to college. What happens in those pampas and gaucho areas? You have kids with developed brains whose opportunities to go to university, to follow an educational path are very low, so they dedicate themselves to playing soccer and use those brain capacities, ”Rossi continues with his reasoning.
“That is why the two conditions that we have identified exist in those areas: having a developed brain from having consumed a lot of protein in childhood because meat is cheap and because there is a habit of eating a lot of meat in this area and also, in instead of going to study, they dedicate themselves to playing soccer”, insists the economist.
