From player to coach, Sydney Vermillion passes on the lessons learned from her pro soccer career

Sydney Vermillion hails from Los Angeles and brings club + country international playing experience to her coaching abilities across Southern California. She shares with us some of the lessons the beautiful game has taught her, and her goals for the future of youth and women's soccer ?

Create relationships with your players. Get to know them on a more personal level. You get a different type of athlete when they have passion to play for their teammates, community, and coach.

?? Who is the toughest opponent you’ve played against?

My toughest opponent so far in my career was Norway. What made them difficult was that they were incredibly fast and technical, so they were able to get through us with ease and it put more pressure on our back line than normal.

?? What would you say is one of the biggest differences between playing in the US and internationally?

The fans are the biggest difference. They live and breath soccer, so you can feel the passion in the stands. The training sessions were similar and expectations from coaches and teammates was the same as well.

?? What do you wish you knew when you were younger before playing internationally/pro?

I wish I knew that I could go play soccer in any country in the world, and I should have tried to play as much as possible to gain new experiences and knowledge about the game.

?? What memory of soccer has stuck with you the most?

My favorite memory was being able to have my daughter with me during my first international cap for World Cup qualifiers.

?? What is something you learned from a former coach that you’d love to share with coaches now?

Create relationships with your players. Get to know them on a more personal level. You get a different type of athlete when they have passion to play for their teammates, community, and coach.

?? What do you feel is the hardest or biggest adjustment going from player to coach?

The biggest adjustment was realizing that I have to coach each athlete differently. When I play I treat everyone the same; it’s game time and we all go hard. Because I coach different ages and abilities, I've had to adjust on the fly and find ways to challenge my best athletes while developing my newest players.

?? Tell us something that you understand more now as a coach than when you did as a player:

WORK HARD. The more time and effort you put into your personal development the more dominant of a player you will be.

?? Give us advice for young up-and-coming defenders:

Watch as much soccer as possible. I developed most and understood defending even more watching players like Roberto Carlos and Canavarro. I would watch the way they rotated in certain situations and was able to pivot during my own games.

?? What influence do you hope to have on your players as a coach?

I hope to pass on my love and passion for the game to the next generation. I LOVE this beautiful game. It has given me my best friends, unique experiences and opportunities I would have never dreamed of. I want all my players to not only love the game but?watch it, play it, succeed at it, fail at it, learn everything they can about it. I want them to have the opportunity to have all the wonderful memories that fill my life with so much joy.

?? How do you think the landscape is changing for young female players coming up with more eyes on the women’s side of soccer?

I think that more fans are watching and seeing that women play a different style than the men do. We play more tactically and more team-style play. From this I think there are more lenses watching games. Eyes are wide open waiting to see what next goal the ladies are going to score.

???? Thank you for reading our Soccer Insider and learning about the women's game from Sydney Vermillion.

? Subscribe and Share this newsletter!

? Keep Dreaming