Player Profile #10

Keeth Lee
aka. Keef
aka. Kickbox Keef

Keeth is the coolest thing at The Sam right now. He has actually been at The Sam ever since the beginning, but it has only been in the last month since the world has acknowledged Keeths skill.

Growing up at Krapiti College with Charles, Keeth had it tough. Keeth had to learn football, and learn it fast to keep his skill to a satisfactory level. However, Keeth started to lax out on his skill and he was very lucky to be invited to the first ever training of The Sam, with only three others. Possibly his relationship with Charles got him through.

Unfortunately Keeth was not put into the first team of The Sam in the first competition. He played one game, and did not leave any mark on the game. The same could be said of his performance in the summer league. The second indoor league came, and The Sam, seizing the chance to gain some new talent, created a new team altogether, The Fatties. Keeth was taken out of The Sam and put into The Fatties. There Keeth showed his true form. Starting every game, he quickly developed into a player with killer ball control and super strong defence. Once rated alongside Steve and Ramage, Keeth was now a definete first team player in The Sam. His performance in his first game back for The sam earnt him keeper of the season. Keeth appears in all games now.

Keeth, in his spare time, is a kickboxer. This is quite benifitting for The Sam seen as the team has had a few aggressive moments in recent years. However, Keeth, while doing martial arts training in nepal, has learnt to keep calm under pressure. That being said, he would surely like to practice some KA-POW on Desousa if the opportunity arose. His calmness is a great virtue. While due to his looks, he has been rated as good looking as Steve and Seung, keeth is not seen walking around town with 5 girls giggling beside him.

Keeth has been the outsider of The Sam for so long, that he has come back and revealed himself in his true glory. A bit more than average footballer, but an awesome The Sam member, who can KA-POW people.

Profile Featurette #8

The Asian Influence

Arsenal have often been called the French team of England for their large number of French players. Other teams have also been recognised for their certain ethnic collection - Barcelona for their Brazilians, Liverpool for their Spanish contingent and more recently The Sam FC for their predominantly Asian team. We analyze the latter and the effect the Asians have on the club.

If you were to stroll into Kelburn Park, home of The Sam FC, there is a chance you may initially mistake it for Team Asia. After all The Sam FC is made up of 99% Asian players. From defensive player Tony Ng to striker Geoffrey Wong, The Sam has blended together a mixture of herbs and spices and created a team with the flair and skill of Asia.

The beginning of the Asia Era began when the class of 2004 all retired leaving The Sam as the only first team player left for The Sam. The player/coach/manager/checkout-chick then sent his scouts all over the world for possible The Sam recruits.

Scouts searched far and wide, from Armenia to Zambia but it became clear that the Asian market was the place to look. After all, it was home to players with the skill of Brazilians and outrageous hairstyles, not to mention all Asian countries have a soccer shop in every town and city.

The Sam quickly snapped up Bum Joon Kim (Rep. of Korea), Chaz Hornblow (Papua New Guinea) and Keith Lee (Malaysia).

Early 2005 saw an influx of more Asians into The Sam. In came the Chinese (Arthur, Derek, Geoff, Tony, Winter), the Vietnamese (Duc, Hieu, Pake) and another Korean (Seung).

The Asian Invasion had brought major marketing success to The Sam and soon after many other clubs followed suit, sending scouts to Asia for players. The Challenge brought in an ensemble of Chinese, Vietnamese Fantasy brought in...Vietnamese.

But apart from marketing success, The Asian-influenced team have provided The Sam with success in the beautiful game. Medals and trophies began appearing in the trophy cabinet, and now The Sam have established themselves as one of the top ten best clubs in the world alongside Real Madrid, Barcelona and AC Milan.

This year The Sam have lost some of their players who went back to Asia. Derek Wang and Seung Park (the most popular shirt seller in Asia, even above Beckham) are the two biggest losses. Bum Joon Kim and Winter will soon join the exodus as clubs around the world are now looking to Asians for football glory.

But The Sam have added Dave Abbondanzieri, a player of Sri Lankan descent to their team roster, one that is already dominated by Asian names.

And why not? After all, girls everywhere in Japan wear Hornblow shirts, school boys in China wake up to watch The Sam play at odd hours of the morning and Koreans everywhere shout 'BUM JOON! BUM JOON!'

Profile Featurette #7

The Challenge.

aka. The most popular team ever


The Challenge were definetely a team to beat. Although their physical attributes were not perfect, their skill made up for it ten-fold.

The only unfortunate aspect about The Challenge was that the team was around exactly when Equinov were reaching one of their many peaks. The predominantly Chinese team had easy beats in all competitions right up until the final when most of the time they were beaten by Equinov.

The Challenge have left a lasting imprint on the history of the competition by the massive crouds that gathered when The Challenge played. Even teams like The Sam, Tui Tubbies and shiney helicopter stripes are not able to get crouds of one tenth the size.

The Challenge, although they are a completely asian based team, actually originated in Trinidad. The people in Trinidad were sick of people comparing them to Tobago so They decided to create a wonder team to whip any Tobagan teams. Unfortunately, it seems that there were no good Tdinidadian players good enough, so they had to send players from China to beat them. The Chinese players (the challenge) were horrified by "these Tobagan rituals" that they saw on Tobago that they fled to New Zealand for recuperation.

After years of competition and only a few medals, The Challenge saw hope in 2006 with the Match fixing debarcle which destroyed Equinov. Unfortunetely The Challenge were now old and there once superstars withering into nothing. The Challenge was also losing money from their unsuccessful campaigns. They were then forced to sell their players for small amounts of money. But teams in the competition did not want the players so they were sold into illegal slavery in Herzegovina. One player remains however. He was bought by The Tree Ninja Kollektiv for $4million.

It is sad to see an old superpower of the game to fade like this. But it leaves more space for the rest of us.