With the release of Why Kenyans Win Marathons and Estonians Build Unicorns in the last week of July, just as the world reflects on another FIFA World Cup, development scholar Anirudh Krishna offers a fresh lens through which to understand international football success.
As global attention turns to the world’s biggest sporting tournament, one question always returns: Why do some countries consistently outperform others?
Krishna’s answer challenges conventional wisdom. Success in international football, he argues, is not primarily determined by population size, national wealth or luck. Instead, countries that repeatedly succeed have invested for decades in something less visible, but far more important: a ladder of opportunity.
The world’s most successful football nations have built dense ecosystems comprising:
- youth academies
- school and club competitions
- coaching pathways
- scouting networks
- professional leagues
- sports science
- community support
- visible role models
- viable careers beyond elite playing
These systems don’t simply produce elite footballers. They create thousands of opportunities for coaches, trainers, analysts, referees, administrators and sports professionals, making excellence sustainable rather than accidental.
Drawing on more than a decade of research across countries as varied as Kenya, Jamaica, Estonia, South Korea and Nigeria, Krishna shows that the same principle applies across sport, technology, music and entrepreneurship. Jamaica’s sprint dominance emerged after systematic investment in coaching and professional pathways. Kenya’s marathon supremacy accelerated as training camps, domestic competitions and athlete support systems expanded. Estonia’s remarkable success in producing tech unicorns followed deliberate investments in education, digital access, and entrepreneurial ecosystems.
The lesson for football is clear: World Cups are rarely won by talent alone. They are won by countries that have patiently built opportunity systems over generations.
As Krishna argues throughout the book, excellence sits atop opportunity. Nations that invest in broad, accessible talent pipelines consistently outperform those relying on isolated stars or short-term success.
Publishing in India in the last week of July, Why Kenyans Win Marathons and Estonians Build Unicorns arrives as a timely contribution to conversations around sport, development, and nation-building, showing that lasting success is created not by chance, but by the systems societies choose to build.
Imprint: India Viking
Published: 24 July 2026
ISBN: 9789377300838 (Hardback)
Length : 264 Pages
MRP : ₹699.00
