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When I began to write about these studies a few years ago, I was met with thoughtful criticism, but also denial. Maybe in some other sport, fans would often say, but that’s not true of our sport. The community of the world’s most popular sport, football, was the loudest. And then, as if on cue, in late 2014 a team of German scientists published a study showing that members of their national team, which had just won the World Cup, were typically late specialisers who didn’t play more organised soccer than amateur-league players until age 22 or later. They spent more of their childhood and adolescence playing non-organised football and other sports. Another football study published two years later matched players for skill at age 11 and tracked them for two years. Those who participated in more sports and non-organised football, “but not more organised soccer practice/training”, improved more by age 13. Findings like these have been echoed in a huge array of sports, from hockey to volleyball.