#1 Biography

[ComebackZak]

Pete Martell grew up in Seattle, Washington in the United States. He grew up playing soccer from an early age and only played soccer. His parents were incredibly supportive and paid for him to go to different camps and to play in competitive travel leagues once he got to an appropriate age. While his parents would always be supportive of his hobbies, this was different. Pete was naturally gifted at soccer and always had to play one to two age brackets up due to this. So his parents invested in him and what was pretty apparently a dream of his. Pete was always talking about playing at an academy so that he could play in the Simulation Soccer League. He had posters all over his walls of different players from across the league and tons of soccer balls scattered across his room. Outside of their house in the backyard, there was half a soccer pitch and several goals of different sizes, cones, and even more soccer balls. Pete and his dad would constantly be outside practicing at the insistence of Pete following these training camps. He constantly wanted to improve and work on the things former professionals would teach. This is also where Pete was discovered by some scouts from the Soccer Simulation League. They noticed he was able to replicate what was being taught quickly and seemed light years ahead of kids his age with dribbling skills, passing finesse, and shooting power. The travel leagues Pete would take part in started putting goal restrictions on him so he wouldn't be allowed to score more than 3 goals a game. This allowed him to work even more on his passing in live games and eventually he broke both the goal and assist record for multiple competitive travel leagues. He has finally done enough to get recruited to The Academy for the Soccer Simulation League and is looking forward to living out his dream.<br><br><!--c1--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1' id='CODE-WRAP'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->323 words<!--c2--></td></tr></table><!--ec2-->

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[Tomen]

(336 words)<br><br>Alex Selich is just a young german footballer who was born to quite the athletic family that had family members trying their luck in various professional sports already. The Selich family is more known for their prowess in ice hockey but some family members tried different sports for example: american football, basketball, baseball and motorsports actually. One might say the family saw their best success in american football actually since a family member that is also called Alex managed to get into the HoF there. <br><br>Alex's older brother actually was a player that has been drafted in the past and actually was an MVP in the 2nd division before after being drafted at the #3 spot in the S4 draft. Sadly the older brother called Konstantin didn't truly live up to his potential and slowly drifted into being a forgotten player that had a promising career start. <br><br>Due to this development with his brother Alex is now trying to just have a continued decent progress in his skills without trying to make an impact early on. But nonetheless he is quite competitive and would like to see some individual success during his career which shouldn't be a huge surprise given the position he is playing and viewing himself as the primary goal threat for his team when he plays.<br><br>Alex hopes that he can one day win some silverware in the majors level which is something no Selich has done so far in the world of sim soccer. Obviously helping his home country of Germany also get a win here and there in international competitions is also a goal. Alex sees himself as quite the loyal player unless he is of the opinion that his current team is detrimental to his career accomplishments. <br><br>From a locker room perspective one could say that Alex is more the introverted shy type that listens quite a lot of time and isn't too much of a talker, as for a potential leadership style Alex thinks that actions speak louder than words.

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[Reno]

Hannah’s story has always been one of punching above her weight class to get opportunities where they might not have always existed. Despite the early efforts of her parents to get her into soccer, it did not take naturally for her. Her feet were too uncoordinated and she just was not sure what to do and how to do it, but in nature of her personality, she persevered. While she might not have been the strongest or the tallest for her early age group, she spent time and energy just running and running until she could not run anymore. Her blistering speed finally got her noticed by the KNVB league in the Netherlands where she was signed into the youth academy for AFC Ajax when she was 10 years old. Hannah took the chance and ran with it, literally. While her technique might not have always been the strongest, she knew how to use her skillset to bounce back and make up for her mistakes. Coaches appreciated her work ethic and found her to be an incredibly coachable player who was willing to do anything to get better at the game she was enjoying. At age 16 she would get the call to make the Dutch U18 team, where she would come off the bench in a few games but not start. Following her 18th birthday, she would jump several players on the depth chart and get named the starting right wing back where she would help lead the team to several successful tournaments and plenty of success on the national stage. With news of this rising league called the SSL arising, Hannah would transfer into the academy leagues here where she plans to fine tune her game to become an incredibly tough defender to play against and use her aggression and frequent physicality to throw opposing players off of their game and win whatever team that signs her some titles.

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[Aephino]

Atlas Uzun grew up just outside of the city of İstanbul in Göztepe. Atlas never fit in with other kids and honestly did not enjoy football. But because it's all everyone talked about in his family and friend group (not that he had many), Atlas figured he would have to learn. It wasn't until Atlas had a growth spurt at the age of 13 when he began to get more attention. From ages 13 to 15, Atlas grew over 10 inches, and now at the age of 18 stands at 6'4. Due to his height, Atlas was shoehorned into net for his first club team at 14 years old. However, it became quite clear that Atlas had very little coordination of his lanky limbs and struggled to move quick enough laterally to stop shots. Therefore Atlas was forced to move upward slightly in the field at the center of defense, tasked with just trying not to foul and heading any balls that come into the area. This was largely successful as Atlas's long legs were surprisingly adept at intercepting the ball and his height created an obvious aerial advantage. Atlas spent most of his free time working on conditioning, but also began to working on his shooting for the first time. In less than a year, Atlas went from having essentially never kicked a football to having the most lethal strike on his club team. Atlas was given a go up front for the team and due to his length and powerful shot, Atlas scored a fair few goals. Atlas was finally coming around to football and was thinking about pursing it as a career. Unfortunately, this came crashing down when his new club coach at 17 forced Atlas to start playing defensive mid because Atlas was so adept at tackling. After much complaining, Atlas compromised with the coach to play DM as long as Atlas had offensive freedom. And thus, Atlas settled into what would be his preferred role and set off to work, hoping to spark notice internationally.

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[ZootTX]

Steven Urkel was born in Dakar, Senegal, into an unassuming Senegalese family. Steven's family was not rich, but relatively poor, and his childhood was mostly unremarkable. His father was a local construction worker, while his mother attended to Steven and his 4 siblings and washed clothes on the side. Steven attended the local school, where he was an average student. One thing that did set Steven apart was he was an avid reader and spent most of his inside time with his nose in whatever book he could find. As a young child, Steven didn't spend much time pondering his future, but, like many local children, spent much of his free time playing soccer with the other neighborhood children. Requiring nothing but a simple ball and relatively open plot of space, it isn't surprising that the sport is so popular. Dakar has a relatively mild climate, especially compared to other parts of Africa, so Steven spent long hours outdoors with his friends. Senegal is a poor country, and there isn't much opportunity for children. As Steven grew older, he began to become more aware of his limited prospects in life. While his father provided for his family, Steven saw how rough his life was on him physically, and that wasn't an appealing future in his mind. Steven knew he was pretty good at soccer, but didn't know how he could translate that into a better life for himself and hopefully his family in the future. One day, Steven discovered that the SSL had an academy for young players, in hopes to develop them for a professional soccer career. That sounded a lot better than swinging a hammer for the rest of his life! So Steven applied and tried out in hopes of making one of the academy teams. When he got notification that he had been accepted to be the goalkeeper for the Victoria Falls Eagles he was the most excited he had been in a long time. Steven can't wait to see where his soccer career takes him!

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[Aleris]

Viktoria Snooks grew up in Innsbruck, Austria most of her life. When she was young, her parents died in a car accident in the Alps. Viktoria unfortunately spent a lot of time in an adoption system, just never quite finding the right family. That all changed when Viktoria was about 14. A hockey player from the SHL who had just set up their permanent residence in Austria, was looking for a kid. And Viktoria, 14 at the time, just clicked with Conner. Within the year all the paper work was signed. Viktoria would travel to the USA during the season and go to all of Conner’s games and when they could. They would both travel to see Conner’s sister play soccer in the SSL for whichever team she had journeyman’d her way on the play for. Viktoria had always grown up playing soccer and loved spending time with her two aunts (the other being Helena Soderberg). Viktoria also grew close to her 4 cousins, who all played hockey at the semi-pro level in Sweden. Super international family and lots of traveling so Viktoria felt ready to play for Laos when they selected her in the draft. She really couldn’t believe it. She had been playing in a league in Edmonton, Canada. Nothing serious. More of a semi-professional league that just traveled within the province. Playing in Canada, especially northern Canada was an experience though.  Lots of frozen pitches and snow storms to play through. Viktoria started to emulated her aunt later in life and switched from an attackers to a wingback, but she’s a pretty versatile “up and down winger” as her dad would put it. She can attack and defend both equally and loves trying for killer passes over the top to strikers. Can’t win without taking a few risks. Mostly, she’s excited to settle in the Loas. Its a long flight and she’ll miss Austria and Edmonton, but it’s time to start her story.

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[Durodo]

Growing up in Freising, a smaller town in Germany, it was no wonder that Erik Beermann quickly fell in love with this sport. Of course at first it was more or less his parents signing him up for local clubs to have him be active and social, but the older the Bavarian got, the more invested in soccer he became. His father was an avid fan of FC Bayern München and so young Erik spend quite some weekends inside of the Allianz Arena, growing up to nearly only see Bayern win championship after championship.  Something that was quite boring for him.

His parents did make him join Bayern München’s youth training camps, a thing most big German clubs did during the school holidays. He was never good enough to join the most prestigious German club. Instead he went a bit further south, into München’s district called Unterhaching, home of the SpVgg Unterhaching. A club that once played in the upper leagues of German football but since had settled into the third division and below. With 10 years he joined their youth system and went through most of the teams there during his years, becoming a supporter of the whole club in the process.

Beermann was never a big prodigy. No scouts ever saw anything big in him, he was never touted as a potential Bundesliga player. Yet Beermann tried his best to improve himself. Both on and off the pitch. Due to not being one of the best talents around, he of course still had to just go to school like everybody else did too, not letting him focus completely on soccer as much as he had wanted to. Wanting to prove those scouts wrong. At age 15 and 16 Erik always played at least one or two age classes above himself. Joining the u17 team at 15 and finally making the jump into Unterhaching’s second team, playing in the lower division of German football, at the age of 16. Which turned out to be a real challenge for the young midfielder. Having to play against fully grown adults, even while most at that level were only doing it as a hobby and definitely not professionally, Beermann was outmatched physically.

Even through that mismatch, he showed his brilliance as defensive midfielder. Having had to adjust to aniticipate moves more than rely on his strength and his body he learned skills that would make him a better player overall. He was ever so close to joining the first team of Unterhaching, making the jump to the professional side of football, but he never really got the chance due to his still young age. The coach wanted him to stay playing for the 2nd team for another year or two. It was around his 17th Birthday when Beermann had gotten the offer from the SSL to join their academy. It was an unknown territory for him. He had become so accustomed to the way German football worked that leaving it to join another League system seemed wrong. But with his future not guaranteed at Unterhaching, Beermann accepted the invitation.

A decision that would get him closer to his dream of becoming a professional player.

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[Squid]

Marco Tentacles is the younger brother of Squidwardo Tentacles, a high draft pick in the Simulation Hockey League and left winger for the Yukon Malamutes of the SMJHL. Marco was born in Canada after the family had a holiday stay close to the city of Toronto and they couldn't fly back home to Latvia, resulting in Canadian citizenship for Marco. Growing up Marco was a bit shorter than his older brother, coming in at a height of 6'1 to Squdiwardo's 6'4. A family of athletes with their cousin Austin Tentacles playing in the Simulation Basketball Association, Marco was disinterested in both Basketball and Hockey, but picked up a knack for football at a young age. Often dribbling a ball around between classes, after school, or in the backyard, Marco would go on to get picked up by the NF Academy in Riga, participating in the Riga Cup. Marco would go on to play all over the left side for the academy, but ultimately ended up playing at the left back position, idolizing fellow Canadian Alphonso Davies. With a great work ethic that has helped Marco establish a calm, cool and collected playstyle, content with playing small simple passes with a good first touch, or switching the play and drilling crosses. Even though his play is calm and collected, he is a known pest against his opponents. He likes to throw opposing strikers and wingers off of their game with some chirps and taunts throughout the game or after a big slide tackle. Not afraid to use his 6'1 frame to establish body positioning or dribbling the ball to safety, he is content with playing anywhere that is needed and in whatever role is asked of him. After being picked up by the Victoria Falls Eagles, Marco looks to make an impression on his squad as he works hard to prove he was the right pickup for the club.

323 words

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[Echlyrica]

Jane Hagglund was born and raised in Kelowna, British Columbia. Growing up, she had always enjoyed going to Kelowna Knights SMJHL games, but while she loved watching hockey, she was never any good with a stick and a puck. Where she excelled however, was with a ball on a pitch. She hadn't been all that old when academy scouts had started appearing at tournaments she played at with the local youth squad. She even got some articles about her in the newspaper. Now, she is waiting to hear which Academy she will be going to to advance her soccer career. While she has traveled across Canada and the USA for soccer, she is admittedly quite nervous about leaving Kelowna full-time. One thing that has helped her is a developing friendship with Knights right-winger Crystal McLeod, who came to the city from Ohio and fell in love with Jane's hometown. Jane hopes that much like Crystal fell in love with traveling around the continent playing hockey, she herself will love traveling the world for soccer. In the meantime, as she waits to be drafted Jane continues working on her skills. She believes that some day the world will be watching her, as she wears the jersey of Team Canada in international play. She wants to do her home proud. She wants to hear the crowd chant her name to the tune of a pop song. She knows she's ready to set the world on fire as a Canadian phenom.

NEEDS MORE 40 WORDS OR SO

[bluesfan55]

Klaksvikar Itrottarfelag are one of the most successful teams in the Faroe Islands. Admittedly, that's not saying much; the country (recognized as part of Denmark, but with its own FIFA-recognized national team) has 17 clubs (10 of which play in the top-flight Betrideildin). But KI were the first Faroese team to play in the group stage of a European competition, making the Europa Conference League in 2023-24. And in the team's shock 0-0 draw against French giants LOSC Lille, a young striker would make his debut. Teitur Justinussen had been the top scorer in the Faroese 1. deildin (second division) the year prior with KI's second team, scoring 18 goals in 25 games; the 6'2" forward (he's only 17, by the way) had impressed with his strength and finishing ability. So when he came on for KI's usual striker Pall Klettskard in the 65th minute, eyebrows were raised. This was Justinussen's first team debut with a team he'd been playing for since age 7 and supported all his life, and it was coming against a team that had won Ligue 1 just 3 years prior. He ultimately didn't score, but would play in the club's last game of the season, scoring a sensational brace as KI beat EB/Streymur 6-0. He was on the pitch as KI captain Jakup Andreasen lifted the Betrideildin trophy, celebrating the club's second straight title win. Justinussen would debut for the Faroe Islands U-21 national team soon after, but he thirsted for a greater challenge; playing against top clubs like Lille, Olimpja Ljubljana, and Slovan Bratislava in the UECL led the young forward to want to play at a higher level, so when he found out about the SSL it was an opportunity he couldn't miss. Leaving his birthplace and hometown of Klaksvik will be tough for Justinussen, but he knows he needs to leave his home country to progress. He's excited to take on this challenge.

APPROVED - glad to see a player from a tiny country. @bluesfan55