News

PLAYER FEATURE: HAYLEY GONZALES, MISS KICK FC

Published Jun 30, 2022
Written By:  Shawn Medow
             West Region Contributor

Hayley Gonzales is busy. Really busy. 


When Gonzales isn’t scoring goal after goal for the WPSL’s Coastal Division’s newest team, MISS KICK FC, she’s performing a balancing act. Whether it’s coaching private training sessions, working with the middle and high school ministry at her church, modeling for commercials and brands, or maintaining tens of thousands of followers on social media, Gonzalez is always doing something. 

 

“You make time for the things you want to,” Gonzales said. “I enjoy being busy. I truly enjoy doing everything that I do.”

 

Gonzales nearly retired from the game she loved when the COVID-19 pandemic began. She had trials lined up with clubs in Europe but they fell through as the world went into lockdown. Her modeling career paused in unison with her soccer career, so Gonzales went full-time into private training, which she began doing a decade ago at just 17 years old. 
 


Then as her modeling jobs picked up in late 2021, her desire to get back on the pitch did too. When MISS KICK FC was being formed, Gonzales got a call from head coach Scott Juniper. 
 

 

“Hayley is a real joy to have on the squad,” Juniper says. “Always ready to play, loves the game, and a super teammate. It’s important for MISS KICK FC to have people who love the game and that makes her a great fit for us.”

 


Gonzales got started with a bang. In the team’s inaugural game, she bagged a brace, including scoring the club’s first-ever goal. 

 



 

Gonzales now leads the team with five goals, as MISS KICK FC jumped out to an unbeaten run through four matches before losing its first match in a 2-1 defeat to FC Premier Women on June 25. And she’s done so all while playing with broken cleats.



Gonzales has strips of tape wrapped around her cleats to keep them together. She tried to get a new pair before the start of the new season but couldn’t find a pair that felt right, so she made do with what she had.
 

 

“They’re holding on by a thread,” Gonzales says. “I came to terms with the cleats I’ve been wearing and I’m making them work.”



Her cleats haven’t always been on the feet of a team’s leading goalscorer. When Gonzales went into her final collegiate season with Vanguard University, while returning from an injury, she was thrust into the striker role after playing her whole youth career as a central midfielder. It took some time to adjust her mentality, but Gonzales quickly found her footing as a forward and the goals followed. 

 

“I’ve always been more into assists. I didn’t mind doing the dirty work,” Gonzales says. “I kind of took everything that I learned from central midfield and applied it up top. It’s kind of fun to be on this side of it (goals).”

 

 

Off the pitch, Gonzales finds herself helping the next generation, training the next generation of soccer players and doing ministry. 

 

“I want to give them a little cheat sheet on what not to do and things I should have done,” Gonzales says. “That’s kind of the biggest motivator for me is taking all my mistakes or all my wins and pass that along to them, both on the field and in life as well.” 

 

Gonzales has rolled with the punches that life has thrown at her. When she nearly retired from the game after missing out on opportunities in Europe at the start of the pandemic, she made the most of her situation. 
 


Her Instagram and Tik Tok accounts, which boast more than 54,000 and 21,000 followers respectively, contain content of her training, modeling, scoring goals, performing tricks and being her everyday self.

 

“I just put out content that feels natural to me. I don’t force anything. I don't like to be a big personality,” Gonzales says. “I think my Instagram and my Tik Tok is a really good representation of me and who I am. It’s soccer centered and I’m more than just a soccer player.”

 

When the time comes that she no longer plays competitive soccer, she still wants to inspire others and continue her modeling career and hopefully, she says, soccer will still play a role in all of that.

 

“The things I’ve been able to do with soccer supersedes anything I would have thought,” Gonzales says. “If I went to go play pro after college I wouldn't be doing the things I’m able to do today. I wouldn't be able to build the brand that I have today or make the money that I do today or have the opportunities that I have today.”