Cairokyo Legends (Part 6)

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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.

One of the most popular members of any football team is the striker.  Strikers are the primary attacking players in the outfield that usually score the most goals with the most style.  As such, the striker receives the most admiration from fans and serves an important role in shaping team sentiment and identity.  There have been two striker legends that have held down the Tokyo S.C. offense over its history, with Sky Ryze passing the torch to Zlatan Ibruhimovic from one era to the next.




Sky Ryze
Canada – 7'10" 300lbs
Tokyo career: 216 apps, 22 POM (10.2%), 7.35 avg rating
Cairo career: 14 apps, 0 POM (0%), 7.03 avg rating
Team of the season: 4x major, 1x MVP

Sky Ryze was as big as a high rise.  Always taller than his peers, he grew up dreaming of becoming a professional basketball player.  His biggest strength was his leaping ability, which in combination with his height meant he could dunk effortlessly at the rim, but professional scouts didn’t believe he had the same career potential as his older brothers and sisters.  They saw a willingness in Ryze to play physically, but they didn’t see a well-rounded skillset or the right finesse for the sport, with one scout even mentioning his “hands of stone” as a liability for playing with good feel for the game.

Ryze had to abandon his basketball dreams.  He moved to Europe to cope with the disappointment and try to discover another purpose for his life.  While relaxing in a busy plaza one day, he was nearly decapitated by an incoming ball, and his reaction to the moment changed his life forever.  Without even thinking, he headed the ball out of harm's way with exceptional control and strength, surprising the entire crowd in the square.  One of the onlookers happened to be an early SSL investor away on holiday, and at her persuasion, Ryze applied for the league’s S2 draft, knowing nothing about football but interested in seeing if he could make a team with his natural talent for heading.

After showcasing his unique physical abilities at a skills combine, Ryze entered the draft a hotly desired prospect.  He was selected 3rd overall by FC Rio to play striker, and Ryze immediately contributed to the team with his aerial talent.  However, he significantly struggled playing the ball with his feet in his rookie season.  With the FC Rio manager stepping down and a team rebranding on the horizon, Ryze decided to leave the team in search of a more stable organization where he could develop his technical skills for the sport.  He landed with Tokyo S.C. for S3 where he would stay the rest of his career.  He became a quick fan favorite, earning the nickname “The Tokyo Tower” and taking on the likeness of a banana mascot among fans.  Ryze also enrolled as an ambassador for the city's tourism office, which made him a very public figure for Tokyo as well.  He really enjoyed interacting with fans and locals whenever he was out exploring the city.  His teammates were also very supportive of his unique strengths despite a widespread preference for smaller, faster forwards.  Ryze truly found a home in Tokyo. 

Over his career, Ryze averaged 0.6 goals/90, scoring on 11.9% of his shots and landing 49.3% on target.  His best season was S14 when he won the major league MVP, scoring 13 goals in 14 matches with 31.0% scoring efficiency and shooting 52.4% on target.  Ryze also had an incredibly long career, playing 15 seasons in the major league and scoring a total of 128 goals and 31 assists across major league matches.  He even broadened his technical skillset throughout his career, adding contributions in areas secondary to scoring.  This type of activity peak in S12 when Ryze recorded 10.6 headers/90 at 81.4% win rate, 3.9 tackles/90 at 82.1% win rate, and 2.4 interceptions/90.  Staying with the Cairokyo organization for such a long tenure enabled Ryze to grow into a spectacular football player.  The football world is thankful that basketball scouts never gave him a chance; Ryze left a massive legacy on the SSL that set a new bar for strikers.

Now traveling the world in search of new hobbies, Ryze is enjoying retirement – "especially through food and drink", he told me.  He hopes the next stars of this league remember that "effort and presence are always noticed, and a journey includes both the success and the repeated attempts to get there."


Zlatan Ibruhimovic
Malmö, Sweden – 6'5" 209 lbs
Tokyo career: 139 apps, 12 POM (8.6%), 7.19 avg rating
Cairo career: 53 apps, 8 POM (15.1%), 7.47 avg rating
Team of the season: 3x major

“Towering stature, impeccable physique, and otherworldly” – this was the sensational description for Swedish striker Zlatan Ibruhimovic in the S11 prospect draft.  Despite such a raving assessment, Ibruhimovic entered the football scene as if by magic, with no prior history to his name.  Everyone was shocked how such a promising prospect could have gone completely undetected by scouts, but then a massive discovery was made: beneath the botox, Ibruhimovic had a strong resemblance to the legendary striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.  A theory thus emerged that Ibrahimovic, not quite ready to hang up the boots after retiring from his highly-decorated European career, invented a plan to re-enter the football world without the weight of his renowned name overshadowing his every move.  Of course, in response to the relentless bombardment of allegations in regards to his identity, Ibruhimovic denied it at ever turn, but his shoddy disguise propped up by a nearly unnoticeable name change and some small alterations to physical appearance was worthy of suspicion.  At the same time, Ibrahimovic had mysteriously disappeared, all but confirming the scam.

Still, Ibruhimovic stayed committed to his story as a new football player.  He was selected 2nd overall by Cairo City and made sure to hold back his elite talent to come off as a more believable rookie in his debut season.  Gradually, he reincorporated advanced skills back into his game, and the SSL eventually stopped chasing the truth of Ibruhimovic’s origins in favor of simply celebrating his presence in the league.  If the media hadn’t moved on from the Ibrahimovic suspicions naturally, Zlatan’s absurd game day routine would have stolen their attention anyway.  A man of extreme consistency and discipline, Ibruhimovic first unstrapped himself from his inverted hanging bed and then – in free fall from the ceiling – performed a double backflip with triple twist, landing square on his feet ready for a casual 50km run and 50km swim to get the blood flowing.  After this hour workout, he ate a breakfast of 18 boiled eggs, 32 oranges, 14 avocados, an entire smoked ham, and 2 liters of diesel fuel, consuming the feast over some light reading (a few encyclopedias).  After breakfast, he took a quick 2 minute power nap so he was charged and ready for the day, making sure to load up pet hamster Hammy to tag along for his training and the match.

His routine, as unconventional as it was, clearly worked extremely well at preparing the prolific striker for scoring goals.  Across his 9 seasons in the major league with Tokyo S.C., Ibruhimovic averaged 0.6 goals/90 just like Ryze.  He scored on 15.9% of his shot attempts, and landed 52.2% on target.  In the minor league with Cairo City, he accomplished an even stronger 0.7 goals/90 at 19.1% scoring efficiency and 56.7% on target rate.  His best season was S20, scoring 18 goals in 18 appearances and winning the major league's Golden Boot.  Without question, Ibruhimovic was a scoring champion that totaled 121 goals in league play over his career.

Zlatan is recently retired from football, this time for good it seems.  It’s possible he takes on another fake identity to extend his career even further, or maybe he already has, but he told me for now he is working his dream job in a Tokyo maid cafe.  Let's maybe keep an eye out for an Ibrihimovic or Ibrohimovic in the upcoming prospect classes just in case he changes his mind.