Sergio Lara-Bercial

Sergio Lara-Bercial
Leeds Beckett University | LEEDS MET · Carnegie School of Sport

PhD in Positive Youth Development in Sport; M.Sc. Sport Psychology; B.Sc. Physiotherapy;

About

65
Publications
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Introduction
Dr Sergio Lara-Bercial is a Professor of Sport Coaching at Leeds Beckett University and the VP for Strategy & Development at the International Council for Coaching Excellence. He has published widely in a variety of coaching-related topics and delivered keynotes, lectures and workshops across five continents. Sergio is also the co-founder of ICOACHKIDS, a global movement helping coaches put kids first in sport, and consults for high-level organisations such as Nike, FIFA, UEFA and IOC.

Publications

Publications (65)
Chapter
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To enhance our understanding of the practices of successful people, a more comprehensive and nuanced examination of what underpins their successes is imperative; that is, why they behave the way they do. In this chapter, we provide an insight into what we have learned about highly successful elite sport coaches and how this understanding might info...
Article
Full-text available
In 2011, the Innovation Group of Leading Agencies of the International Council for Coaching Excellence initiated a project aimed at supporting the identification and development of the next generation of high performance coaches. The project, entitled Serial Winning Coaches, studied the personalities, practices and developmental pathways of profess...
Article
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Professional youth football (soccer) academies face a number of challenges related to the contrasting and at times competing nature of their goals. Marrying long-term development of players with success in youth competitions and combining the development of young people as athletes with their growth as human beings are some examples. Professional f...
Article
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The role of the coach developer (CD) has broadened over the last two decades. Today CDs fulfil multiple functions, such as tutor, facilitator, expert, or mentor. They also play a significant part as learning designers. CDs are normally not trained to perform this role. This practical advances paper provides an overview of the role and required skil...
Article
Full-text available
Talent Development Environments (TDEs) aim to provide the appropriate conditions for youth athletes to realise their full sporting potential. How TDEs are designed and operated is therefore of great importance for the development of elite athletes. Stakeholders are vital in this process, yet their perspectives are poorly understood. This study asse...
Article
Purpose: Despite the known health and wellbeing benefits of taking part in sport for children and adolescents, it is reported that sports participation declines during adolescence. The purpose of this study was to explore current organized youth sport participation rates across Europe for both males and females and update current understanding. Met...
Technical Report
Resumen de buenas prácticas en el Mini Basketball-Aprendizajes de la serie de seminarios virtuales FIBA 2021 en español y portugués ESCRITA POR:
Poster
Full-text available
This poster details an overview of a study conducted within the ICOACHKIDS+ Research Project. The study aimed to examine and compare the perceptions of athletes, parents and coaches within talent development environments in Europe, to established areas of TDE strengths/weakness and stakeholder similarity/difference. The work adds to knowledge on...
Article
Full-text available
This study aimed to explore the potential for sport to support psychosocial development in young people in a youth performance setting using a novel realistic evaluation approach. Part 1 of this two-paper series published in this Special Issue identified the programme theories-how the programme is supposed to work. A wide and deep network of contex...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract: Sport has the potential to support psychosocial development in young people. However, extant studies have tended to evaluate purpose-built interventions, leaving regular organised sport relatively overlooked. Moreover, previous work has tended to concentrated on a narrow range of outcomes. To address these gaps, we conducted a season-long...
Article
The contribution that sport coaches make to society has received growing recognition among policy-makers over the last decade. Sport coaching is no longer only associated with professional and Olympic sport, trophies, and medals, and it is regularly proposed as an activity that contributes to the development of individuals, communities, and societi...
Preprint
Full-text available
Sport has the potential to support psychosocial development in young people. However, extant studies have tended to evaluate purpose-built interventions, leaving regular organised sport relatively overlooked. Moreover, previous work has tended to concentrated on a narrow range of outcomes. To address these gaps, we conducted a season-long ethnograp...
Preprint
Full-text available
Part 1 of this 2-paper series identified a wide and deep network of context, generative mechanisms and outcomes responsible for psychosocial development in a performance basketball club. In this – part 2 – study, the stakeholder’s programme theories were tested during a full-season ethnography of the same club. The findings confirm the highly indiv...
Conference Paper
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Given the importance of the environment in athlete development, recent years have seen an increase in research examining Talent Development Environments (TDEs). However, most research is limited to a single nation and the athletes’ perspective with little consideration of the views of parents or coaches. This study addresses these limitations by ex...
Article
Over the last decade, there has been increased recognition of the size and role of the coaching workforce in Europe. This has led the European Commission to increase its focus on sport coaching and call upon Member States to take steps towards its regulation or professionalisation. However, despite this policy direction, the academic literature, al...
Article
Full-text available
This article provides an overview of the context, details, and outcomes of a consultation and review of the International Council for Coaching Excellence’s interactions and engagements with, and service provision to, the international sport coaching research community. The consultation and review were undertaken by the International Council for Coa...
Chapter
Organised sports participation is a pervasive feature of 21 st century societies globally. Every day, hundreds of millions of children, young people, adults, and older adults take part in athletic pursuits. Many of these activities are led by coaches, who therefore make up one of the biggest workforces across the world, even if most of them act as...
Research
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This research report presents the findings of a unique, multi-country and multi-sport study investigating the participation rates of children in organised youth sport. Participation data were collected for the period 2017-2020 from 18 sports across 27 countries. In total over 5.5 million children and young people were sampled in this study.
Technical Report
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This position statement on the professionalisation of coaching for the period 2021-2030 represents the conclusions of the work of the CoachForce21 Erasmus+ Co-Funded Project Partners. It builds on the previous position statment published in 2011 by Duffy and colleagues.
Book
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The EYVOL project addresses the topic “Promote voluntary activity in sport”, as the main purpose of this project is to provide young multipliers (youth leaders and civil society activists) and young sports volunteers with concrete training tools to be used in youth empowering activities based on social inclusion through sport. This manual contains...
Chapter
While the impact of coaches on their athletes has been appreciated for more than a century, only recently have researchers reached a consensus concerning the key coaching principles and methods that consistently ensure the most positive outcomes for athletes and coaches. Sport Coaches’ Handbook presents this more holistic approach to coaching and p...
Technical Report
Full-text available
The Research Report sets the context and background for the project. It provides an overview of the ‘state of the art’ in Coaching policy, including good governance, measures for the coaching systems, regulations in coaching, volunteerism and women in coaching. The report informs about methodological considerations for good practice analysis, and m...
Technical Report
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This report provides a comprehensive ‘state of the nation’ analysis of the sport coaching system in the EU. The current state of key elements of the system across a large sample of member states has been collated to, for the first time, build a composite picture. The resulting overview provides valuable information as to what elements of the system...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This report seeks to provide updated data and determine coach representation trends by comparing it to data gathered in the previous CoachNet project (Duffy et. al., 2013). The results and conclusions that stem from this map will provide valuable information as to what elements of the system appear to have made substantial progress and which requir...
Technical Report
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In the Council Conclusions on the role of coaches in society, a political statement of all EU Ministers responsible for sport adopted under the Estonian Presidency (November 2017), Member States invited the European Commission to develop the topic of coach education. Following this request, the Commission decided to include in the works of its Expe...
Chapter
Full-text available
Sport coaches have a tremendous influence—positive or negative—in the lives of athletes. Too often, however, the delivery of quality coaching is left to chance. Athletes deserve coaches who create positive environments, foster skill development, and build character. In Coach Education Essentials, leading coach educators and professionals from aroun...
Chapter
Full-text available
This chapter explores the notion of the professionalization of coaching and coaches based on the current work and previous experiences of the International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE). It provides a historical review of the evolution of the notion of coaching as a profession through key texts published by ICCE as well as existing researc...
Article
Research investigating coach education and development has grown significantly over the past three decades. Most of these efforts have focused on establishing how coaches learn; yet the actual impact of specific coach education and development interventions has received considerably less attention. Moreover, the role of coach developers in facilita...
Research
Full-text available
Millions of children and young people take part in sport and physical activity across Europe every day. However, the majority of their coaches are either not qualified or hold lower level generic qualifications that do not prepare them specifically to work with this age-group. iCoachKids (iCK) is an international, collaborative, multi-agency, Eras...
Research
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The European Coaching Children Curriculum (ECCC) aims to provide guidance for those developing coach education opportunities for children and youth sport coaches. It highlights the key functional areas and tasks of the children and youth coach (CYC), the relevant competences required to fulfil the role, and signposts coach developers to the most up...
Chapter
Full-text available
The purpose of the chapter is to overview a positive view of professionalisation that contrasts with recent positions that place responsibility for the coaching change process on individuals and small groups. Our position focuses on coaching change as a broader systemic improvement process enabled by the mobilisation of resource, notably, through s...
Chapter
Full-text available
The purpose of the chapter is to overview a positive view of professionalisation that contrasts with recent positions offered, notably, by Cassidy, Jones, and Potrac (2016) and Lyle and Cushion (2017). Our position focuses on coaching change as a broader systemic improvement process enabled by the mobilisation of resource, notably, through state in...
Book
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The Player Development Framework Playbook describes the Basketball England vision and philosophy for the development of English basketball players. It includes proposed learning outcomes and competences of players as well as related methodologies and guidance for coaches by age and stage of development.
Technical Report
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This literature review is a central piece of iCK. It has provided the necessary evidence to aid the development of a European Coaching Children Curriculum to guide those developing training opportunities for coaches of children and young people in the European Union and beyond. The literature review and the ECCC also inform the development of the t...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This literature review is a central piece of iCK. It has provided the necessary evidence to aid the development of a European Coaching Children Curriculum to guide those developing training opportunities for coaches of children and young people in the European Union and beyond. The literature review and the ECCC also inform the development of the t...
Research
Full-text available
Research conducted as part of Erasmus+ co-funded iCoachKids project offers a bleak picture of the education and working conditions of coaches of children across the European Union. The report reveals that a general lack of recognition of the children’s coach, regulation, education and development opportunities and reliable demographic data are maki...
Technical Report
Full-text available
The purpose of this curriculum is to provide a reference point for all those involved in children’s coaches’ education and development. Whether you are creating a short apprentice coach qualification, a two-hour continuous professional development module or writing up a full three-year bachelor’s degree, the ECCC should provide a clear menu of opt...
Technical Report
Full-text available
General aspects of the European Erasmus Project PSYTOOL to develop fair play, equality, promote positive values in sports and against max fixing and cheating
Article
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This magazine article explains in detail the leadership style of the 17 Olympic and Professional Serial Winning Coaches we studied between 2012 and 2016. We called it Driven Benevolence.
Poster
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A description of the European Project: Main ideas, Aims, Partners, Tools, evaluation, interventios...
Book
Full-text available
The European Sport Coaching Framework is an output of www.coachlearn.eu an Erasmus+ co-funded project led by Leeds Beckett University and the International Council for Coaching Excellence to enhance the learning, mobility and employability of coaches in the EU. The ESCF builds on the work of the International Sport Coaching framework to provide gui...
Article
Full-text available
Sport coaching is at a pivotal moment in its short history. The publication of the International Sport Coaching Framework by the International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE) in 2013 has drawn attention to coaching world-wide and fostered a step change in the way coaching systems are understood and built. Within this evolving context, higher...

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