I thought it was established fact the Australia has the best players. Why even bother about the 2nd place? Back in the days when I argued that a big pool of players should also mean a higher skill peak, I was quickly convinced by an eloquent emissiary of Criminal's Island that the opposite is true. I forgot the exact reasoning but it was something along tight communities breed incest superpowers or something.
Nowadays EU is probably reduced to Dave playing with himself, so I don't know if the princible still holds.