Why the U.S. has never produced a male global soccer star remains one of the world’s greatest sports mysteries.

For a huge country that prides itself on producing elite athletes of all stripes, even in sports that aren’t endemic to its culture, the U.S. has contributed precious little to global football. Its best male exports to date, beyond goalkeepers, are Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan, two national-team veterans who never rose beyond the journeyman level in England’s Premier League.

Meanwhile Uruguay—whose population of 3.4 million makes it about 100 times smaller than the U.S.—has only recently given the world Diego Forlan, the top player at the 2010 World Cup, and Luis Suárez, a member of the unstoppable three-pronged attacking front at Barcelona that includes Lionel Messi and Neymar and helped the Spanish club lift the 2015 Champions League trophy.

“You are talking about a country with a league that is only 20 years old and one that has a history of winning World Cups, so it’s not a fair comparison,” said Uruguayan-American Fernando Clavijo, technical director for FC Dallas, who moved to the U.S. in 1979. “One day we will provide the world with some top goal scorers, I am sure of it.”

Sunday’s final between the Columbus Crew and the Portland Timbers shows Major League Soccer and the sport’s national federation still have a ways to go in this regard. The match features a showdown between Sierra Leone-born Kei Kamara of Columbus, who tied for the league lead in goals with 22, and Nigeria’s Fanendo Adi of Portland, who tied for seventh best with 16. Just two of the top 10 scorers in MLS this year were born and raised in the U.S., the lowest total since 2001.