Why would a college team need to preselect players if it's all about the management? Couldn't they just pick random players?

Thinking about this more, I find it hilarious to imagine that you would expect the same results from A and B given the same set of performant managers:

A - team of highly unmotivated, undisciplined players

B - team of highly motivated, disciplined players

Do you watch college sports? Or are you just talking about what you imagine to be true? It’s not the same thing as a team of mid 20s+ trained professionals working in the context of a tech org. Indeed, The excellent talent skips college, goes to the pros, where talent matters much more than the org management.

I watch college soccer. There are talented players, talented coaches, shit players and everything in between. There are people who go on to become pretty known and there are people who die out in college soccer. I've never seen a single championship won by a team that doesn't have synergy going on between the players also, and not just a great top management.

Anecdotal:

There's a huge team here, wins most of the high level championship because they have a lot of money and end up buying worldwide players, so their access to the talent pool is broader. They also have the best coaches money can buy.

One year, one of the most famous players we've had decided to start up his own academy and create a new soccer team, with local people. He worked on it for a couple of years and came in and took first spot in the championship. Brilliant games.

They sold players due to their win, for a lot of money, and started the roster again. Next year, and since then, they have yet to achieve such a victory.

I would blame this situation on the synergy of the team and find it hard to imagine your world where the top management gets to decide who wins and who doesn't.

Managers are involved in choosing who is on their team

What does this argument even mean? Of course managers are involved in choosing who is on their team. That doesn't make them the team.