I find this story very hard to believe or grossly exaggerated. I mean this is soccer we're talking about, not brain surgery. If you plucked a random reasonably healthy person who had never seen a soccer ball in his/her life off any street in America say, and put them in a pro club with a contract and daily training with other pros, that person would probably become a reasonably good soccer player. Was it really harder for him to just, well you know, play than to fake it for 20 something odd years?

Apparently you are completely unaware of just how highly skilled they players are at this level. If anyone could do it they would, it's a highly desirable career.

This is correct. Football is "our thing" in the UK. Even in high school, some kids just had a knack for it and could run rings around everyone. There was no amount of training you could do to catch up to them. None of these kids went on to play professional football - they weren't good enough.