Fresno City College student athlete Camilla Figueira is returning for her sophomore year as a player for the Ram’s women’s soccer team.

She plays as a midfielder in the coach’s 4-4-2 team structure on the field.

Playing soccer has always been a big passion for her, and Figueira has been playing team soccer since she was an 8-year-old growing up in Rio de Janeiro where she was born on Oct.18,1995.

“Soccer is important for me because it’s a game that I’m passionate about,” Figueira said. “That helps me to keep focused and push hard on the academic side of college.”

“I like all the perspectives about the game, the control you have over the ball, being able to dribble, make all the tricks you want, having that vision over the field, being able to take shots, scoring and getting that emotion and excitement from it, plus all the friendships you make,” she added.

Head women’s soccer coach, Oliver Germond, had great praise for his player’s abilities on the field but also talked a little about what challenges she faced while making the transition to the style of play that is typical here.

“She has very good ball skills, and she sees the field really well,” Germond said. “On the offensive side her skill level is very high.”

“Defensively she kind of struggled a little bit. I think just in general in this country the game is a little more physical on the women’s side than it is in Brazil,” he continued. “I think it was just a question of her getting used to the physicalness and the mindset of wanting to defend instead of just attacking and just having a balance between the two.”

Figueira said the way that she started school in the U.S. was unconventional.

“When I was 15, I did an exchange program and then I came back after a year in Green Bay, Wisconsin,” Figueira said. “It was fun; it was different because it was cold.”

When she is done at FCC, she wants to continue her soccer career at a four-year university, although she is undecided on where.

One of the things she is most proud of accomplishing is coming to FCC and starting her career. Additionally, she came here by herself and that is one thing that Germond admires about her.

“In the past, I had a lot of international students reach out to us, but they never go through with it ,and to me that’s what’s impressive about Camilla” Germond said. “That she is able to go from Rio to Fresno; that is big change, and at 19 years old to make such a big step in your life is amazing for her to be able to do that.”

Germond said it took courage for Figueira to be able to find her way around Fresno on her own and speak English the way, “like she has lived here her whole life.”

She is also a big fan of the game, not just playing but watching. Her favorite Brazilian team is Flamengo and her other favorite team is FC Barcelona from Spain. As far as her favorite player goes, she is a Neymar fan, a superstar forward for FC Barcelona.

However, soccer isn’t all that she is passionate about.

“Going to the beach is a big thing,” Figueira said. “I like surfing a lot, I’ve been doing it since I was 8 or 9.”

She also enjoys simply spending time with her family and friends.

Figueira has spent a good amount of time traveling back and forth between Brazil and the U.S., so adapting to the culture here wasn’t a problem for her.

“My family has a house in Orlando, and my uncle lives in New York, so my family pretty much came to the U.S. a lot all my life so the culture wasn’t really different,” Figueira said.

Professionally she has very high aspirations for herself.

“[I major in] Pre-med. I want to be a surgeon, a doctor,” she said. “Once I go to school, step by step, I will know what I fall in love with.”

Figueira said the happiest times of her life was “coming to the U.S. to got to college and play soccer, which was my dream since I was little.”

Not everything was easy for Camilla either, she said she had a few challenges adapting to the U.S and “getting used to soccer here — which is way different — a more physical game[than in Brazil].”