It’s more enjoyable to watch Sydney and Shelby Payne play soccer if you stop trying to tell them apart.

The identical twins from the Tampa Bay area feature for the RSL Tampa Knights U17 club team, the U.S. Youth Soccer Region III ODP 93s, and most recently for the U15 Girls National Team. It was for that squad that they participated in a camp earlier this month, including matches against Stanford and other collegiate sides. The idea of twins playing together on a team may be somewhat notable, but the odds of both sisters reaching the youth national team level have to be long indeed.

Apparently more than few coaches have struggled to distinguish the pair from one another when their training gear doesn’t include numbers. Both players performing at a high level also contributes to the difficulty of telling them apart. As it turns out, the sisters have even worked to hone their skills together, not just with teams and trainers, but on their own.

“We have a system,” said Sydney, who plays on the right side of midfield for her club team. “We like to hit shots off our rebounder net and try to do 50 with each foot and on opposite sides. We practice moves with it and pretty much train together.”

“We’ve been playing with each other all of our lives, so we know each other like the back of our hands,” said Shelby, a striker. “We know how each other is thinking on the field, so we finish each other’s passes and cross a lot of balls to each other.”

Their mother Tammy identifies a shared trait that has made a big difference in the girls’ early success in soccer.

"Even though they are so similar in genetic makeup, there are differences in their personalities, but they are still so close and since they also very focused and driven, they push each other to train harder and this helps them get better,” she said. “I think it would have been like this whatever they chose to do, but they really loved soccer and soccer won out.”

The girls’ father Mark also notes this determination, pointing out that in scrimmage situations where they are pitted against one another, nothing is given easily.

“They are real competitors. Warriors,” he said.

Tammy credits Mark with helping the girls find the right training opportunities after a college coach identified them to him as “special” at a camp. The Colorado Girls Soccer Academy receives credit for helping develop their talent until they moved to Florida 2 ½ years ago, with the coaches at Knights picking up from there. Sydney and Shelby also point to early involvement in 3v3 tournaments, including a trip to the national finals at Walt Disney World, as helping a lot.

“That really helped with our technical development,” Sydney said. “It taught us a lot about playing in tight spaces and making quick decisions.”

The learning process continues for these 2 talented players. Both mentioned how intense the most recent U15 GNT camp at Stanford was.

“We really learn a lot every time we do this,” Shelby said. “I love playing even more, the more intense it gets out there.”

Asked to describe one another’s playing style, the pair found a lot of common ground, but some distinctions.

“We do some things the same, but we definitely have differences,” Sydney said. “Shelby is really fast, she takes people on a lot and is good at scoring. She’s also really strong. She never loses the ball.”

“Sydney is very fast,” Shelby said. “She’s good at 1v1s and good technically also. She really likes to score and she’s very good at crossing. We can both do pretty much all the areas, but each of us is stronger in some than the others.”

Shelby notes that the duo wanted to play up 2 years at the club level to find a suitably-challenging speed of play. Sydney adds that despite this motivation, they are both quite enthusiastic about the team’s fortunes, and are dedicated to helping the squad go one step higher from last year’s state finalist performance (Clay County United were the 2007 U16 champions in Florida).

Both players said continued improvement was their most basic goal, but admitted a desire to play in the 2010 U17 World Cup, with a top college program and eventually with the Women’s National Team.

As always with players this young, its impossible to say whether that will happen, but the twins from Tampa are off to a good start at pursuing their ambitions.