I always just assumed that since it's a Euro team, "smaller player pool to draw from, therefore less absolute-peak talent".

Like instead of having 1 in 10 million talent they might have 1 in 1 million or 1 in 300K, which just isn't on the same level as NA.

Just like how the US and China tend to take many top Olympic spots in most sports, purely because they have 5-20x the population of smaller nations.

It's a little like wondering why there are so few women in the top ranks.

There are clearly female tournaments and very talented female players, but the player base is significantly lower than the male one, so there's a smaller pool to get that 1 in X million talent from.