This is the weird thing for me about some of these discussions. I'm not going to question Messi's ability or ability in general but I've always wondered how muc

This is the weird thing for me about some of these discussions. I'm not going to question Messi's ability or ability in general but I've always wondered how much "extraindividual" factors start to play a role in those upper tails that are incentivized. We talk about Messi like he's just a marble sculpture handed down from God but that's not the case. Looking at the figure, for example, one thing I noticed was the gap between the two upper points and the rest. It's hard for me to imagine there aren't some missing points there. In other fields or areas, I think you have to start asking about things like fraud, other vice, or circumstances. As you suggest, there's probably also some unique things about international football that make it difficult to generalize to other things. Everything is probably a little unique in certain ways really, but the incentives are so extreme and the play is very visible.