How early should children go into formal coaching? With Dr Mark Williams

There was a time when the best footballers in the world—from Maradona to Johann Cruyff or Zinadine Zidane—learned their skills playing street football. Now promising footballers go into academies by the time they are six. Is this formal coaching environment killing creativity in sports? Is prescriptive coaching—where it’s the coach’s way or the highway—an outdated model? What makes a good coach? How can players develop creativity? These are the questions at the root of Dr. Mark Williams’ decades-long research, which led to the book The Best: How Elite Athletes are Made. In this episode, Dr. Williams dives deep into what the data says about formal coaching vs informal play in the development of elite athletes.