Sebastien Stephens '25 Recruiting Profile

I was born in the United Kingdom, but I was raised in Canada from the age of three, and I have Canadian and UK citizenship.  My father played Varsity collegiate soccer at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.  On my mother’s side, my uncle (her brother) played professionally in the fifth and sixth tier of the English soccer pyramid before an injury sidetracked his career at an early age.  

On the football side, I had initially trained with the Whitecaps FC pre-academy boys, and then I signed for TSS Rovers FC.  I play with the TSS Rovers FC II Senior men's team (ages range from 16 to 23 - I am 16, but started the season as a 15 year old), and I am a starter usually anywhere among the front three in a 4-3-3 formation.  My team acts as a feeder / second eleven for the men’s team fielded by TSS Rovers FC (a semi-professional team in League 1 British Columbia (the third tier of the Canadian football pyramid)).  For my school, I play for the Varsity boys soccer team (seventeen and eighteen years old), playing up two years.  My school usually places highly in the Provincial finals and we won it in 2019 (we finished 4th in the Provincials in 2022 and just last week we finished fourth again for 2023 out of 216 schools - lost in the semi finals on penalties). As a player I am quick, smart and technically strong, and because I play against players who are much more physically developed I have been taught to solve problems with my brain and my decision making as opposed to trying to out-muscle or out-run my opponents.  I am a good teammate and an excellent passer of the ball, modelling my play after my favourite footballer, Marco Reus of Borussia Dortmund (and now the Los Angeles Galaxy).

On the academic side, I have 4.0 grade point average, and an average percentage of 94%. Like many boys born in the UK, my first ambition is to secure a professional contract to play the game I am so passionate about, but acknowledging that injuries and other things can derail that dream, I do want to pursue a business degree at the same time as playing at the highest level of collegiate soccer I can. I would like to stay in the game as part of my career either on the pitch or in the front office in some capacity, and a business degree will be a strong first step if the future on the pitch becomes uncertain.