HTML CSS ul and li in a div

Question

I have the following HTML code:

<div class="playerInfo">
    <ul>
        <li id="playerTeam">
            team
        </li>

        <li id="player">
            player
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>

I have the following CSS style for the same:

.playerInfo{
    width: 60%;
    height: 30%;
    margin: auto;
    background-color: #888;
}

.playerInfo ul{
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    list-style: none;
    text-align: center;
}

.playerInfo li{
    display: inline-block;
    width: 30%;
    height: 80%;
    vertical-align: middle;
    background-color: #555;
}

I want the li blocks to be vertically in the middle, but vertical-align: middle does not work, and the li elements begin from the top! Also, I would like there to be a gap between these li blocks, so that they are aligned center, but with a gap between each other. How do I do that?

Answer 1

Sorry, misread the question. Correct aswer would be:

<div class="playerInfo">
    <ul>
        <li id="playerTeam">&nbsp;
            <span>team</span>
        </li>

        <li id="player">&nbsp;
            <span>player</span>
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>

.playerInfo{
    width: 60%;
    height: 200px;
    margin: auto;
    background-color: #888;
    position: relative;
}

.playerInfo ul{
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    list-style: none;
    text-align: center;
    height: 100%;
}

.playerInfo li{
    display: inline-block;
    width: 30%;
    height: 80%;
    background-color: #555;
    position: relative;
    top: 50%;
    transform: translate(0, -50%);
}

demo fiddle

This is how you could center text in li element. If You can modify Your DOM, then wrap text in span:

<div class="playerInfo">
    <ul>
        <li id="playerTeam">&nbsp;
            <span>team</span>
        </li>

        <li id="player">&nbsp;
            <span>player</span>
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>

And modify stylesheet:

.playerInfo{
    width: 60%;
    height: 30%;
    margin: auto;
    background-color: #888;
}

.playerInfo ul{
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    list-style: none;
    text-align: center;
}

.playerInfo li{
    display: inline-block;
    width: 30%;
    height: 80%;
    background-color: #555;
    position: relative;
}

.playerInfo li span{
    position: absolute;
    left: 50%;
    top: 50%;
    transform: translate(-50%, -50%);
}

Answer 2

use padding instead of giving specific height for li as shown below 

<div class="playerInfo">
    <ul>
        <li id="playerTeam">
            team
        </li>

        <li id="player">
            player
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>
<style>
.playerInfo{
    width: 60%;
    height: 30%;
    margin: auto;
    background-color: #888;
}

.playerInfo ul{
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    list-style: none;
    text-align: center;
}

.playerInfo li{
     background-color: #555;
    display: inline-block;
    padding: 11% 0;
    vertical-align: middle;
    width: 30%;
}
</style>

hope it helps