Again, it's popular as they don't have the choice in poor ass countries to play football if they wanted to.
It also fits the buids of the people in those countries. They're small, tiny... Not built for basketball or even less football.
Deal with that, lol...
Soccer is the most technical sport in the world. That's requires the most natural gift in order to play at he top level.
that's why American peoples are so poor to be performant in the sport, number one on earth.
For example, too be an Us pro football player, you just need to be black, minimum 6'2, low IQ, solid joints, a lot of steroid intake and to run fast straight. (quite the same for baseball, really poor natural gift required, and "run Forrest run" philosophy)
but when it comes to have to play only with your feets (the only sport) and have a game vision, that's just out of any American concept due to the complexity.