Cairokyo Legends (Part 5)

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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.

Midfielders are the glue between the forwards and defenders.  They give structure to the formation, relieve some of the defensive load from the back line, and create shot opportunities for the attackers.  With these responsibilities, midfielders often serve as the team’s captain, and Tokyo S.C. did indeed get some long-term leadership from the midfield partnership of their early era.  Helena Söderberg anchored the team from its founding through S15 as both player and manager, and Guillaume-Olivier Aubuchon-Touchette was a worthy sidekick to Helena that specialized in defense.




Helena Söderberg
Luleå, Sweden – 5'10" 143lbs
Tokyo career: 200 apps, 5 POM (2.5%), 7.01 avg rating
Team of the season: 1x major

For Helena Söderberg, family has always been the center of her life.  She grew up as one of seven siblings that were inseparable from each other, even more so after losing their father just after the family’s youngest child was born.  Such a large family did make it difficult for Helena to set herself apart though, and she found herself especially overshadowed by her extroverted twin sister Cecilia, but Helena eventually created an identity for herself by being the only Söderberg to follow mother Hanna in playing professional football.  Hanna was a legend on the Swedish national team for both football and archery, and while all of her siblings were very athletic, only Helena carried that legacy into the next generation.

Helena’s first adventure away from her family was attending private high school in the United States.  Norfolk Academy had a renowned football prep program, and while training for her professional career there, she also practiced independence in a way that she never would have if she stayed in Sweden.  Helena then attended UNC for college, where she earned a degree in sports management and established a strong reputation as a top tier prospect.  In the SSL’s first draft, Helena was selected 7th overall by Tokyo S.C. without any hesitation, and she moved to Japan right away to join the team for the dawn of the new league.

While in Tokyo, Helena loved learning about Japanese history and culture.  She had a special passion for the video game industry there, and over her first season in the city she developed a meaningful relationship with a studio that advocated for female representation in sports games.  Unfortunately for Helena, soon after launching her first project with the company, they brought on a second brand partner that happened to be none other than Helena’s arch nemesis Eirlys Snooks.  Their relationship became slightly more amicable after finding common ground in gender equality, but Helena still had to restrain herself from getting into fist fights at every meeting, even going on record saying “that girl is the absolute worst!” early in the partnership.  To everyone’s surprise, the animosity was tempered over the years, and the two even started to grow fond of each other’s company.  Heading into S5, Helena and Eirlys officially announced themselves as partners, replacing their on-field rivalry with romance.

On the Tokyo S.C. squad, Helena was a very reliable midfielder and contributed to 4 of the team's Cup wins.  She scored a total of 26 goals and 21 assists over her major league career and participated in the offense with an 88.1% pass completion rate.  She also averaged 1.8 tackles/90, 2.0 interceptions/90, and 2.1 clearances/90 to round out a balanced approach to the game.  The only season Helena lined up in a different uniform was S8 when she was loaned out to Seoul to mentor her brother’s godson, to which she famously said “learn how to teach football yourself, Gunnar”.  Despite her attitude about the move, it may have been this change of scenery that helped her reach a new level of success when returning to Tokyo in S9, in which she had a career-best scoring season with 6 goals across 14 matches, very worthy of a selection to the Team of the Season.

If it wasn’t the temporary loan to Seoul that unlocked her peak, it was her offseason routine that by S9 had become well-rehearsed and effective.  Instead of using the offseason to train, Helena and Eirlys used the time to recharge both physically and mentally by traveling the world together in search of beautiful scenery, luxurious hotels, delicious restaurants, and other unique destinations.  They have continued to travel after retirement with the support of a sponsorship from luxury travel company Rainbow Rivers, although trips are now interrupted by daughter Kiwi’s hockey season.  Helena’s strongest passion remains her family still, now with children of her own and a tiny Yorkshire terrier named Satan to raise.


Guillaume-Olivier Aubuchon-Touchette
Marseille, France – 6'0" 190lbs
Tokyo career: 170 apps, 2 POM (1.2%),  7.01 avg rating
Cairo career: 28 apps, 1 POM (3.6%),  6.97 avg rating

It was a rainy morning when Océane Aubuchon and Philibert Touchette welcomed baby Guillaume-Olivier into the world.  He became the light of their world on that somber day.  G.O.A.T. – as his aggressively French name was abbreviated – grew up surrounded by the things that made France great, and he loved them all: cheese, art, patisserie, and especially football.  When G.O.A.T. started playing in youth leagues, he always played as a striker, scoring tricky goals with exceptional touch, and his parents never failed to brag that he could kick a ball even before he was potty-trained.  As he grew older, he also developed a temper that would erupt on his teammates when they made defensive mistakes.  It frustrated G.O.A.T. so much that he switched to defensive midfielder out of spite to prove that defense wasn’t that hard.  He filled the role very well and made the move permanently.

Tokyo S.C. already had a really solid defensive foundation coming out of S1, but in the search for more defensive depth they used the 4th overall pick of the S2 draft to bring the unmatched confidence of G.O.A.T. to the team.  He fit in nicely with everyone, and he formed a particularly close relationship with Helena Söderberg, who at the time slotted into the formation as a wing back.  G.O.A.T. envied Helena’s big family, the complete opposite of his life as his parents’ only child.  Their friendship also carried into their chemistry on the field, which eventually influenced Tokyo to pull Helena into the midfield position so her and G.O.A.T. could play more closely together starting in S3.

In the beginning of G.O.A.T.’s career with Tokyo, he was almost exclusively focused on playing defense, which was especially strange given his childhood obsession (and skill) for scoring goals.  But he was a solid non-flashy defender that did his job with no questions asked.  In the major league, he averaged 4.8 headers/90 and 0.5 key headers/90 at 75.4% win rate, 1.4 tackles/90 with 73.9% of attempts won, 1.7 interceptions/90, and 3.5 clearances/90.  Over time, he became more comfortable out on the pitch, learned to better appreciate the freedom of play, and started trying to add an offensive edge to his game.  It would take most of his career to get it right, but eventually he developed a powerful long shot that he could blast from deep.  In total, G.O.A.T. scored 10 goals and 19 assists across his full career, 5 of which came in his second-to-last major season S12.  Finally achieving some offensive success was extremely rewarding for G.O.A.T., and he was especially proud that it came immediately after his peak defensive season; in S11, he was very disruptive in the box with 8.6 headers/90, 0.4 key tackles/90, 3.5 interceptions/90, and 7.9 clearances/90, all career highs.  While he won’t be remembered as the greatest of all time, G.O.A.T. had an incredible arc of growth into a diverse midfielder asset for Tokyo S.C.

Throughout his career, he grew significantly in his attitude, too.  The arrogant striker that switched to defense just to prove a point is now a humble goat farmer that really isn't all that into fame, hoping to help the agriculture industry without a fixation on perfection or supremacy.  His work with responsible agriculture started when he joined Greenpeace in a worldwide effort to promote biodiversity during his early SSL seasons and continued when he later committed to a vegetarian diet, and now it’s come full circle with a full-time second career raising animals.  G.O.A.T. told me that “[working in agriculture] is far from the most lucrative venture, but I’m incredibly proud to be working for something that is important to me.  It contradicts everything people expect when they read my name, and I love when it catches them by surprise.”

[Definia]

In love with these write ups! Great read