If nine year olds played football at school the way they do math, it would consist entirely of drills zigzagging through cones, without even touching a ball, supervised by coaches who had never played in or perhaps even seen a match.
The problem is that the audience of mathematics students at school is captive, and indeed even subject to punishments for failures to comply. No one involved feels any obligation to make the experience of learning math stimulating and rewarding. Most believe it can't be done.