Our Story
At its heart, KidSuper Samba has two core philosophies that the club lives by and passes on to its players: chase your dreams and fulfill your potential. Our club is home base, both a security net and a stepping stone for those who seek to use football to better themselves.
The club’s earliest conception was in September of 2016, in discussions between William Caverly, Colm Dillane, and Caetano Sanchez about how to bring their beloved youth coach Wilson Egidio’s Brazilian football philosophy and Brazilian-style players that are scattered throughout the five boroughs into the light of day, rather than remaining as urban legends on the fields and courts of the city’s lowest income neighborhoods and forty dollar beer leagues. A plan was hatched to combine Colm’s thriving KidSuper brand with Wilson’s new youth club Samba, which he had founded only a few months prior in the spring of 2016. In essence, like many great things the club began as a buddy project. An application was submitted to join Division 2 of the Cosmopolitan Soccer League, the oldest soccer league in North America and the city’s official lower league football system.
The club traces its official founding date to June 27, 2017— the evening when confirmation of acceptance to the league was sent over by the CSL office. As with all new things, Samba battled the adversity that comes with the lack of infrastructure inherent to being something that has yet to establish itself. The club was unable to hold practices during our first season, and barely able to get enough field times at our home stadium in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, Columbia University’s beautiful Baker Athletics Complex. Despite all the difficulties, ultimately talent shone through and the “Samba Boys”— a nickname bestowed by the league’s match reporter—managed to piece together a second place finish in the North Group of CSL D2 and qualify themselves for the league’s promotion semi final. More adversity struck, as the decisive playoff match that year fell squarely during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. With most of our players observing the traditional fasting rituals of their culture, the team was left to lick its wounds after a 4-3 defeat to end our inaugural season as a football club.
For the 2018-19 season, the club returned for its second year stronger than ever. Despite still having been unable to secure a practice field, the players immediately set out to rectify the previous year’s mistakes and led the league in first place from start to finish, winning the CSL D2 North title outright with games to spare and racking up 82 goals scored in only 19 matches. The players’ strength and faith were once again tested in the league’s playoff final, which again fell during the month of Ramadan. In an epic rainstorm and a rematch with the same club that had eliminated Samba on the exact same field 364 days prior, the match was truly a test of will. This time, we were victorious 5-4 thanks to a 90th minute winning goal.
The rest is history, as they say. The club moved up to Division 1 and continues to play competitive matches at Baker Athletics Complex, but also enjoys a training field at John F. Kennedy High School only ten minutes away in the Bronx, directly across the Spuyten Duyvil Creek from Baker.
From everyone at Samba, we want to thank you for being here and taking the time to read our story. We will continue to strive for greatness and justice, and hope to be with you for many years to come.
Yours truly,
William Caverly
President / KidSuper Samba AC
May 28, 2020
As of 2022, the club competes in the Metropolitan conference of the Eastern Premier Soccer League, a fourth tier of soccer in the United States.