Goalscorers Top 3 and World Cup

     12 Europeans and 9 South American (I counted Sanchez as latino)

If we compare the best goalscorers separating Europeans and Latinos, and then doing the same with World Cup over the same period of time (since end of World War 2) we get similar patterns. At number one, Europeans and Latinos get similar results (top goalscorer and World Cup Winner). It diverges for number two and three. The reason is that only two countries are really competitive in South America (Brazil and Argentina), with Uruguay occasionally. In Europe many countries since WW2 could pretend to reach World Cup Semifinals. But why Brazil and Argentina are so competitive and often aim at spot number one? The answer is that most of the time they won the World Cup, they had the best player in the world, who are actually the two best players in football history (Pelé and Maradona). Or had top strikers ranked number one in my study like Romario and Ronaldo. It's what it takes to win a World Cup. Having a good defence is not enough, you need great goalscorers and star players, and South America often have natural offensive talents. European teams won the last three World Cup without having the best offensive player in the world. They relied on collective strength, good organizacion, and good defence. And back then, they only had six World Cup Wins instead of the actual nine. Because the recent Brazilian and Argentinian star like Kaka, Neymar and Messi failed where Pelé, Romario, Ronaldo and Maradona did not.