There are several reasons for the rise of soccer's little big stars, but the main one is that being close to the ground is a major advantage for midfielders and forwards. Shorter people have a "quicker stepping pattern," Stasinos Stavrianeas, a professor of exercise science at Willamette University, told me. Essentially, they're spry: They can change directions much faster than tall folks, and they have better control over their limbs.

"That's what makes them more elusive for the defender, and that's what makes them a better threat," Stavrianeas said.

Watch Maradona whip past five English players to score his famous goal in the 1986 World Cup:

Lionel Messi, the Argentine forward who has won four "Golden Ball" player of the year awards, is officially is five-foot-seven, but the Wall Street Journal suggests "that's an exaggeration."

Like Maradona, "Messi worms through tiny creases between defenders that few other players could squeeze through," the WSJ says. "His low center of gravity enables lightning-quick pivots that make him one of the planet's fastest dribblers."

When the data is crunched nationally, however, being shorter doesn't seem to be better for teams as a whole. Using numbers from Achim Kemmerling of the Central European University in Budapest, Chris Anderson of the Soccer by the Numbers blog plotted the average heights of male soccer players by country against the country's FIFA coefficient—basically a measure of how good they are at soccer. Countries above the line play better than their heights would predict; those below the line play worse:

Soccer by the Numbers

"To me, this tells a pretty powerful story; tall is good, and taller is generally better. The correlation is a robust .53," Anderson writes. That's good news for the U.S. national team, which averages out to six feet—two inches taller than the average American male.

What explains the trend? While being stout and quick is good for offensive players, height is a distinct advantage for the other positions: Goal keepers must cover as much physical area as possible, and it can help if defenders tower over their opponents, too.

"You'll find that if there's a corner kick, you'll see the defenders moving forward to try to hit the ball with their head" Stavrianeas said. "But then they scramble back to defense. Not many tall players are good in the front."

Short players might have an easier time overall, too, because studies show tall players get called for fouls by referees more frequently—potentially because people associate height with aggression.

Anderson writes that among the teams on his chart, "There are some notable outliers, amongst them most obviously Spain, which lies way above the trend line." According to his chart, the Netherlands and Germany also perform unusually well—but unlike Spain, they're taller than average. And, as it happens, the three countries placed first, second, and third in the last World Cup.