Record-breaking career of Maize South soccer star Vitor Geromel honors his tragic loss

It’s not just the statistics that separate Vitor Geromel in another class, but goals scored is a good place to start.

The Maize South senior is the most prolific scorer in the history of Kansas high school boys soccer. His 127 career goals (and counting) are a state record and his mark of 53 goals in 19 games this season is one off the single-season state record, which has been held by Andover’s Wil Clay for the past two decades, entering this weekend’s Class 5A state tournament.

He captained Maize South to a 21-0 season and the school’s first boys soccer state championship last fall, which earned him every accolade possible: League MVP, All-Metro MVP, Class 5A Player of the Year, All-Midwest region, All-American and even USA Today Boys Soccer National Player of the Year.

The sheer number of goals and accolades cement Geromel’s place as one of the greatest high school soccer players in the state’s history, but it is the ease in which he does so that make those in Wichita believe he has a case to be the greatest.

“At this point with Vitor, we’re not here to coach him, we’re here to unleash him,” Maize South coach Rey Ramirez said. “We talk about it all the time as a coaching staff, just enjoy watching him play. Enjoy it while it lasts because we’ll never see anything like this again.”

Many are quick to praise Geromel for his seemingly effortless brilliance, but few have seen the stringent training regiment in place away from games that make his accomplishments look so easy.

Even fewer are aware of the depths of tragedy he has endured along the way.

“My parents always taught me, ‘If you want something, you’ve got to work for it,’” Geromel said. “I’ve kind of lived my life off that. Everything I’ve wanted, I’ve worked really hard to get.”

‘No one person is above the team’

Vitor Geromel is the son of Brazilian immigrants who instilled a strong work ethic in him from his childhood.

Edo, his father, moved to America for his high school education and played basketball in Atlanta on an undefeated state championship team that included future NBA player Matt Harpring. He was a role player, tasked with grabbing rebounds, drawing fouls and playing defense to help his team win.

But more importantly, Edo learned the meaning of commitment to a team. That was the first lesson passed down to Vitor.

“Once you commit to something, you commit the whole way,” Edo said. “I don’t care if you don’t feel good, you’re going to practice and you’re going to school. I don’t think there’s ever been a day where he’s asked me to take a day off because he knows I’m not going to let you. We have to go to work. That’s your job. It’s nice to have talent, but it’s better to have a work ethic.”

His father only played soccer for recreation back home in Rio de Janeiro, but his son quickly developed a fanatic passion about the sport. Vitor says he can remember being dressed in yellow at the age of 1, cheering on Brazil in the 2006 World Cup.

It was clear from an early age that Vitor had a special amount of natural talent in soccer, yet his father raised him like a role player. Instead of celebrating individual glory, Edo emphasized the importance of teamwork and fulfilling a role to help the team win.

“It was always team-first and whatever I could do to help the team,” Vitor said. “He taught me that no one person is above the team and that’s always been my mentality.”

It’s easy to assume the record amount of goals is what makes Vitor a captain on the team. He is also surrounded by a host of talented players like Dylan Gorman, Caden Wait and Miles Edwards, but within the program, his leadership is revered just as much as his playing ability.

Those at Maize South will tell you that even after all of the trophies and awards, Vitor has maintained the humility his father instilled in him.

“A lot of what has made Vitor so special is his upbringing and the maturity in which his dad has raised him,” Maize South coach Rey Ramirez said. “It’s been ingrained in him throughout his life to be a team player and to be unselfish and to be humble. His dad is the epitome of all of that. If you look in the stands, he’s always celebrating Vitor’s teammates. There’s never a selfish moment. It’s never been about individual stats, as he reminds us all the time, it’s always about the team.”

‘He’s playing chess while others are playing checkers’

The running joke at Maize South is the worst thing Vitor has ever done is hop fences to train.

“I don’t know if there’s any fences we didn’t jump during covid,” Edo said with a laugh.

“I just kind of got used to hopping a fence,” Vitor said. “And then I would just get to work.”

There’s nothing particularly extraordinary about Vitor’s training regimen. He works on his dribbling by weaving in and out of orange cones spread out on the ground. If a wall is available, he will work on his passing.

There is no real secret to his success, he suggests.

“I just have a ball at my feet every day,” Vitor said when pressed. “Ever since I was like 12, I’ve been training really hard every day and it never let up. It just became a habit.”

“No one ever told him, ‘You have to go back outside and get to work,’” Edo said. “That’s for the love of the game.

His commitment to training is also stuff of legend at Maize South.

A favorite story of Maize South coach Rey Ramirez came earlier this season when predicted bad weather forced the team to cancel practice. There was a break in the storms and Vitor was spotted inside the school and asked why he wasn’t taking advantage of the clear weather to train outdoors.

“I’m waiting for the rain,” he replied.

Vitor figured it was more valuable to wait and train in the worst possible conditions to prepare himself down the road for when those conditions occurred in a game.

“It’s good to be uncomfortable,” Vitor said. “I think when you are uncomfortable, that’s when you push yourself to the next level. That helps you grow. If you’re always comfortable, you’re never going to grow.”

That mentality is why Vitor has achieved so much at such a young age, including representing Team USA on the Futsal Youth National Team, starting on the 2005 team in U.S. Youth Soccer’s Olympic Development Program and being the youngest player ever signed to Sporting Wichita’s semi-professional team at the age of 16.

Vitor is blessed by natural ability and an ideal 6-foot-3 frame at striker, but he’s become the most dangerous attacker in Kansas because of the time he has invested in his development.

“Vitor is playing chess while others are playing checkers,” Maize South coach Rey Ramirez said. “He anticipates plays before plays. His ability to read the game is unmatched. It will look like we found him for goals, but more often than not it’s him who found the ball.”

Kapaun Mt. Carmel coach Anthony Cantele is uniquely qualified to judge Vitor’s place in Wichita soccer history. He has his own case as the top talent to ever come from the city, as it was his state record of 118 career goals during his playing days for the Crusaders that Vitor broke this postseason.

Cantele has also coached Thomas Wells, another premier goal-scorer who committed to Tulsa straight out of high school as the only other high-profile Division I recruit from Wichita since Cantele joined Missouri State in 2008. Geromel is one of the nation’s top recruits in the class of 2024 and will sign to Clemson on Wednesday.

“Every great goal-scorer is a little different and I think I was different from Thomas and Thomas was different from Vitor,” Cantele said. “But the one commonality is the mentality. And you can just tell that Vitor has this intense desire to score. You have to have that hunger, that desire to be at the very top and it’s extremely evident in Vitor by just the way he conducts himself. He’s pretty much impossible to defend at this level. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone that gifted from around here.”

‘You can sit at home and cry or you can move forward’

It’s been more than three years since the world for the Geromel family was changed forever when Erika Geromel, Edo’s wife and Vitor’s mother, died in a car accident in Wichita in 2019.

“We never had a chance to say goodbye,” Edo said. “But we respect that it wasn’t our decision. You can blame God for this and that and we may never understand why, but we can never challenge it. We’re missing her a lot, but you can sit at home and cry or you can move forward.”

The only way forward in a time of unthinkable tragedy was to lean on each other, which is what Vitor and Gisele, his younger sister, did with their father.

“It was a hard thing to go through,” Vitor said. “A really hard thing. But it brought our family closer together. It was us three united.”

Edo said the family would not have made it through the tragedy without the support they received from the Maize community, as well as from his co-workers at Cargill.

Whenever Edo has needed to leave work to pick up his son or daughter from school, take them to a doctor’s appointment or shuttle them to a soccer practice, his work has been more than accommodating. He’s remained a stalwart supporter of the Maize South soccer team, chipping in whatever way he can.

And that commitment has not been lost on his son.

“My dad has meant so much to me,” Vitor said. “None of this would be possible if he didn’t sacrifice to take me to those tournaments and stay three hours for back-to-back practices. I think a lot about all of the sacrifices he made and all of the advice he’s given me growing up and how that’s played a huge part in where I’m at.”

Maize South soccer coach Rey Ramirez has marveled at the resilience of the Geromel family.

“We talk about the pressure of performing in playoff games, the pressure of trying to win a state championship,” Ramirez said. “But Vitor has dealt with a hell of a lot more adversity and pressure as a young man, as a young son in his own personal life. I think it has given him a different perspective on life and soccer. He has done an unbelievable job of channeling that pain and that hurt into a positive. Their entire family has been an admirable example of how to overcome adversity and they have really touched all of our lives and made us better people.”

When raising Vitor, Edo and his wife wanted nothing more than for him to have a strong work ethic, be respectful and earn good grades in school.

That’s what makes him stand proud, more so than any amount of goals ever could.

“People who know about our situation ask me all the time, ‘How do you do it?’” Edo said. “Well, he makes it pretty easy. There’s nothing more I could ask for from a kid. I love him to death and I’m so proud of him.”

Vitor’s mom never did see any of the goals in his record-breaking high school career, but her memory has been a constant motivation for him.

When he steps on the field for the final time this weekend, he will say the same prayer he always does before games. He plays in her honor.

“I know she would be so happy to see me have success,” Vitor said. “She always wanted me to do well. So everything I do is for her memory.”