If one player could carry a football team, Portugal and Cameroon would have done a lot better in the world cup. And if one start player was so important in basketball, Argentina would have never beaten the US and the Spurs would have never dominated the NBA finals like they did this year. Moreover, player-on-player, the star player of Argentina's basketball team (Ginobili) was probably on par with a US substitute player at Indianapolis world cup, and we still managed to beat them in their own country. Moreover, Serbia was in a similar position and they beat them as well. Not only non-star players are hugely important, team play between them is too. Spain probably has the best player-by-player football team in the world, and look how that went.
Of course there are stars, but teams are still the focus of *team* sports.
In football, a good example is Germany. They often lack a hugely praised star, and are still pretty respected (and with good reason).