Cairokyo Legends (Part 3)

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The Cairokyo Legends

This series explores the 15 players that have played more than 10 seasons with the Tokyo-Cairo organization.

Cairo City has played 13 seasons as the minor league affiliate to Tokyo, and the team played 3 additional seasons in the minor league prior to the organization system, so it's natural to think of Cairo City exclusively as a minor league team.  But for the first 8 seasons of the SSL, Cairo City was a major league club, and the team even won the first SSL title.  Striker Franco Torres, who emerged as a major contributor right from S1, and center back Pierre Houde, who was added with the team's 5th overall draft pick in S3, served as the cornerstones of major league Cairo City until the team was relegated for S9.  At this point, both players transferred to other clubs to stay in the major division, but eventually they found their way back to the Cairokyo organization to finish their careers.




Franco Torres
Madrid, Spain – 6’1” 175lbs
Cairo career: 132 apps, 18 POM (13.6%), 7.16 avg rating
Tokyo career: 42 apps, 2 POM (4.8%), 7.11 avg rating
Team of the season: 2x major, 1x MVP

Franco Torres became obsessed with football as soon as he could kick a ball.  He had a natural talent for the sport, and over several years of practice and competition, he developed into a speedy striker best known for his craftiness at the net.  Brimming with confidence and ready to compete at the professional level, he declared for the inaugural SSL draft, aspiring to be the greatest striker in the history of the league.

To his shock and disappointment, Torres was selected by Cairo City in the last round of the draft with the 49th overall pick.  This draft experience would remain a defining moment for him throughout his career.  On one hand, Torres was motivated to outperform the league’s modest expectations for him, pushing him to prove that his confidence was not an over-exaggerated sense of self-worth but rather the attitude of a star player in the making.  On the other, Torres felt like his draft position was a personal attack on his potential, which occupied his mind in less productive ways, even driving him to pettiness as he grappled with what felt like betrayal by the league’s managers: he hosted a dinner party during S1 where he organized a game of balloon darts, each of 48 balloons enclosing the name of a player drafted ahead of him, and served a lavish meal, each of the 9 courses representing a goal he scored for Cairo City across his first 7 matches with the club.  If Torres hadn’t already caught the league’s attention with that controversial event, his MVP and Golden Boot awards in S1 certainly would have.  Proud of having proven his excellence as an SSL striker, Torres found some emotional resolution to his draft position and set his sights on the future.

Throughout his remaining 16 seasons in the league, Torres continued to flourish as a goal scorer, regardless of whether he was playing with Cairo City, CA Buenos Aires, Reykjavik United, or Tokyo S.C.  Along the way, he also worked on his secondary skills by adopting some unconventional training routines, such as running marathons to build his stamina, practicing crosses with a ball-return catapult, and playing excessive sessions of League of Legends to strengthen his mental fortitude.  Adding these skills helped him beat the opponent’s defense in new ways, but through it all, the core of his game was always scoring goals.  Off the field, Torres was best known for his long-term endorsement deal with the mattress company Sleep Country, which was a perfect match for his love of a good night’s sleep.

Looking exclusively at his 172 matches with the Tokyo-Cairo organization, Torres earned 2 team of the season selections and 20 player of the match awards.  His time with Cairo City in the major league was highlighted by a career average 0.7 goals/90.  During that time, he converted shots into goals at 19.1% efficiency, and his on-target percentage was 54.0% – both really solid numbers for such a high volume of shooting.  In league play, he scored a total of 96 goals and 24 assists with Cairo City and Tokyo.

His debut season was definitely the most impressive of his career, where he scored 12 goals in 10 league matches (1.2 goals/90).  He did so with only 42 shots and 20 shots on target, which translates to a career-high 28.6% scoring efficiency.  A major pivot in his career came later when he was traded to Tokyo S.C., a move to a club that he saw “as perennial winners, contending for trophies year after year”, as Torres told me in an interview.  Although he struggled to score with that unit, he set a career-high 0.6 assists/90 in S15 (8 assists across 14 matches), showing the league that he could evolve his game as needed.

After reflecting on his career achievements, I asked Torres what he’s been up to since retiring from the league 7 seasons ago.  He told me he has been pursuing his passion in developing young athletes.  He started up his own football camp in Cairo in his final season with the club and soon after spun up a copy of the program in his hometown Madrid.  He now travels between the two cities, hard at work raising up the next stars of the SSL.  Other than that: “laying low and enjoying retired life”, says the goal-scoring legend of major league Cairo City, Franco Torres.


Pierre Houde
Quebec City, Canada – 6’6” 202lbs
Cairo career: 122 apps, 0 POM (0%), 6.96 avg rating
Tokyo career: 41 apps, 0 POM (0%), 6.87 avg rating
Team of the season: 1x major

Much like Torres, Pierre Houde was a talented football player from a very young age.  He grew up in the suburbs of Quebec City where he quickly built a name for himself within the local youth football community.  Unfortunately, that reputation was one of ruthlessness and aggression, and his behavior on the pitch became so dangerous that other parents successfully petitioned to ban him from competition at only 8 years old.  As a disciplinary measure, Houde's parents sent him away to train with a European club, which seemed to strengthen his football skills and mellow his demeanor, but when his suspension in Quebec was lifted, Houde moved home and quickly returned to his foul-ridden antics.  He tried anger management counseling and experimented with different sports, but nothing curbed his violent streak.  It was only when Houde learned the mindfulness of yoga in his late teens that he started approaching football with more sportsmanship and finesse.  With his biggest flaw resolved, he had a very attractive prospect profile for the SSL.  Cairo City selected Houde in the first round of the S3 draft with high expectations for the Canadian to stabilize their center back unit.

Unfortunately, Houde’s career got off to a rocky start.  At the end of his first season, he led the league with 5 mistakes leading to a goal, “besting” every other player by at least 3 in that category.  He also struggled to challenge the great athletes of the SSL at the ball, either too sluggish to keep up or too absorbed in meditation to play physically; Houde attempted only 10 tackles across the 16 matches of league play.  His unexceptional performance continued for a couple seasons, and fans started to question his fit with the club.  He was especially criticized when he announced a unique sponsorship for Canadian maple syrup.  What started as a shady call from an unknown number followed by a remote rendezvous at a sugar shack on the outskirts of Quebec City turned into a lucrative partnership with the surprisingly friendly Canadian maple syrup cartel, but many fans saw this venture as an irresponsible distraction from improving in the game.

Despite the public view though, Houde was constantly working to get better, specifically on improving his athleticism.  He finally had a breakout performance in S7 and then followed that up with a S8 full of career highs.  Averages of 17.1 headers/90, 2.6 key headers/90, 3.8 interceptions/90, and 15.3 clearances/90 as well as a 92.7% heading success rate were Houde’s best marks of his career.  He wasn't selected to the team of the season that year, which seems like an oversight in retrospect, but more importantly he was one of the brightest parts of a Cairo City team that played its last ever games in the SSL major league.  Speaking about Houde in our interview, Torres told me “we were for sure two of the main players on Cairo then, I was always cheering for [him]”.

Over his major league time with Cairo City, Houde’s success in later seasons brought up his career averages.  He was decent in the air, averaging 10.8 headers/90 and 1.6 key headers/90 at 82.2%.  His 2.9 interceptions/90, 9.1 clearances/90, and 95.5% passing completion rate were also reliable numbers.  And except for S1, he channeled his aggressive youth in later seasons to emerge as a reasonably active tackler, averaging 1.1 tackles/90 and 0.3 key tackles/90 with 80.2% tackle success rate while with Cairo City.  In fact, his tackling was on a constant climb throughout his career, peaking in S15 while on the Tokyo squad at 1.6 tackles/90, 0.6 key tackles/90, and 91.7% tackling success rate.

Since his retirement, Pierre Houde has disappeared from the SSL community and the world of football entirely.  The only source of information we have about his whereabouts are rumors, most with unknown origins.  The most popular theory is that Houde's partnership with the syrup cartel unfortunately turned sour, which either forced him to live his life in anonymity for self-preservation, or worse, caught him in the crossfire of legal proceedings as an accomplice to complicated criminal activity.  I like to believe Houde made it out without drama, and simply chose to open a yoga studio in the forest and withdraw from the urban lifestyle of his Cairo City days.  I hope he knows that he left a lasting mark on the league and the team.