re: ESPN's Adrian Melville ranks top-23 US soccer players

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Are there really no US soccer players of enough quality to be ranked in the top 100 in the world?

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No there aren't and not even any that are close to Top 100. Howard and Bradley are the most accomplished and are great players but not near the top 100 which is extremely rarefied air.

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Are we really that far behind the rest of the world? I thought we had closed the gap and were a legitimate decent quality team.

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In the sense of the USA actually having a chance of winning a WC, yes, we need to one day produce players that are in the top 100 and a lot of them.

History shows that most WC winners not only have numerous players in the Top 100 but also 2, 3 or 4 that usually make lists of the Top 100 players ever to play the game: Spain 2012, Italy 2006, Brazil 2002, France 1998 etc

However, I would also say that we have more solid players than ever and are still certainly a "decent quality team" even if we lack those few top level superstars right now.

There's only a few teams that are just ridiculously stacked with talent (Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Italy --- you know, the teams that usually win). . . after those you'll more often find teams with some Top100 players but also some weaknesses in their lineups.

At the same time, there's also a lot more like France, England, Colombia, Belgium, Portugal, Chile, Uruguay, usually Holland etc who's "weak links" would probably start for the US too.