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Sydney: I wanted to put myself in the best position
to become one of the best players in the world.
I felt like that the U.S. was the place to do it.
Everything that's happened that I want to be a part of my story is on my body.
I'm Sydney Leroux and this is My Ink.
I started young, I was like 13 years old.
I had nationals and my mom said
if I scored over 10 goals that I could get a tattoo.
And then I scored 13 and we won nationals.
I love my tattoos and I've gotten a lot of slack on it
for saying that I look too aggressive and it's hard and you know,
you're supposed to be a lady.
But I am aggressive and sometimes I can be hard and I can be loud and intense
and I think that that makes me who I am.
Looking at my body and seeing my tattoos reminds me of some of the things
I've had to go through to get to where I am and like my tattoo says,
life is such a beautiful struggle.
I'm always trying to prove people wrong
and a lot of people say you're not good enough
or say you shouldn't be there and every single time I put my cleats on
I have to prove to myself that I deserve to be here
and everything that I've worked for, I'm not going to take it easy today.
Then I have the word caterpillar on my ankle.
I wrote this story when I was a little girl,
I was like 5 and I was big into creative writing and I wrote this story about how
the caterpillar was so ugly and so easy to catch and all this stuff
and then it turns into this beautiful butterfly that's impossible to catch.
Just reminds me that you have to go through something ugly
to get to something beautiful.
I've reached a point where I haven't scored in a few games
and I question myself and I would always text my mom
or I'd call her and I'd be like mom, I think maybe I've scored all the goals
I'm ever going to score in my life and she's just like you're being so silly.
This is life, you're not going to score every game, Sydney.
You're not going to score every game.
Pretty much my entire back is dedicated to me and my mom's relationship.
She pushed me to chase my dreams
and she gave me everything to make that possible.
Life is so much more about doing than talking.
I hope that I instill that.
I used to be really bad at self-motivation when I was in college.
It was so good that I had a structure
because I probably wouldn't have gone out and ran
but now I feel like you're running towards something.
For me, I'm running towards a World Cup, a gold medal.
I hope I instill that in a little girl who watches me play.
That you just have to do, you just have to go for it.