Kiara Bercelli is one of St Andrew’s College's most high-achieving footballers. She is currently on a professional contract for Sampdoria in the Italian Serie A and is studying a Bachelor of Sport Coaching online with the University of Canterbury. In June, she was in Fiji to play with the New Zealand U20 team in World Cup qualifiers, before heading back to Italy for pre-season training.

Kiara loves anything to do with sports so didn’t hesitate to select the Athlete Sports Performance programme as one of her subject choices. She says the main benefit she got out of the programme was working with teachers, Riley Gain and Ben Eves, on how to balance her sport with her schoolwork. She has found the programme incredibly helpful after moving on from St Andrew’s and still uses the same spreadsheet today to keep herself organised. Nutrition and mental co aching abilities are among the other valuable skills she picked up.

Kiara’s aims in the future are to keep developing and making a name for herself in Italy, and hopefully representing the Football Ferns at the 2024 Olympics and the 2026 Women’s World Cup.