I understand that they're different games -- I've played them both -- this is just speculative. Here are my thoughts:

In soccer -- each week a coach picks 18 players who "make the team" for that week. 11 start with 7 subs available. While star players get the benefit of the doubt, there's more turnover in the starting 11. There is a competition every week to make the team.

Your "form" is taken into account: level of physical fitness, injury, need for rest, how you've been playing recently, and your fit for a particular matchup.  There are competition and strategy every week. It's rare with star players...but Ronaldo and Messi have been "benched" at times for these various reasons. The theory is that a younger, fresher, hungrier, or more "in-form" player at 100% is better than an "out of form" star.

Your past performance is taken into account -- and gives you a leg up. The BEST players will start 80-90% of the time. But anyone can be benched for any given game. Sometimes, we just aren't playing our best for whatever reason...soccer takes that into account. 

OSU/Urban puts an emphasis on competition in Spring/Summer but once we pick "starters" they have to be seriously injured to be replaced.  It's almost as if the competition is over. To me, this leads to complacency.  Then bitterness/division creeps in because guys who look obviously "out of form" are still playing and others aren't getting shots. I don't see discipline or leadership on this team, honestly. 

We hear about how everything at OSU is always a competition but honestly, I don't buy it. Watch what people do, not what they say. Does anyone think that Pitt Brown was always better than Vonn Bell?  Or that a one-legged JTB (and I'm a big supporter of the Captain) was always better than a healthy Haskins or Burrow? Or that a recovering from an Achilles injury Tuf Borland is always better than Justin Hilliard? 

Again, the sports are different. I believe competition raises everyone's game. And right now, our team needs to raise its level. EVERYONE (coaches/staff included) just seems so "comfortable" i.e., set in their ways. w/what we're doing. The definition of insanity -- keep doing what you're doing and expect different results.