Creating Life Champions: Youth Coaching values, ethics, careers and a sustainable development of trainers and athletes - Daniel Alves

The Creating Life Champions project is a collaboration between the ERASMUS+ program and the UEFA Foundation for Children, to strengthen positive social values and principles by using sports fields as a vehicle. This project gathered 16 partners from 8 European countries. The following text presents the results of the ethnographic research done in Portugal regarding this project, aimed to conduct an in-depth analysis of how trainers perceive the educational and pedagogical role of sport and what may be the path for a sustainable strengthening of this role. From April to May 2023, a total of 20 in-depth interviews with youth coaches from 3 cities and 14 football clubs various football clubs in Portugal, to understand, the main factors, values and necessities of working with children in sports, creating a blueprint of the profile of a youth coach in ...