Answering my comment to add an analogy that may or may not make sense to you:

I'm not that athletic, and I never really played soccer. But I grew up in France and Belgium, where soccer is a pretty big thing. I know how a soccer ball feels. We'd often kick a ball around at recess when I was a kid. I never go out of my way to actually watch a soccer game on TV, but I've seen plenty of soccer on TV nonetheless, e.g. in bars or when the TV is playing during a party. Minimal though it is, this exposure to soccer gives me a basic feel for the game that most Americans don't have. Plonk me down on a soccer pitch with a bunch of Americans who are as unathletic as I am (and who have never played soccer in a club, just like me) and give us a ball, I'm fairly confident I'll play better than them. And someone might ask me "are you European?" despite never hearing me speak a single word, simply based on the fact that soccer is a bigger thing in Europe than in the UE.