Salinas Valley Samba

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Salinas Valley Samba

Full name

Nickname(s)

The Samba

Founded

2004

Ground

Salinas High School

Capacity

????

Chairman

Cain White

Manager

Artie Cairel

League

National Premier Soccer League

2006

6th, did not qualify for playoffs





Home colours





Away colours

Salinas Valley Samba are an American soccer team, founded in 2004. The team is a member of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL), the fourth tier of the American Soccer Pyramid, and play in the Northwest Conference against teams from Chico, Redwood City, Sacramento, San Jose and Santa Rosa.

The Samba play their home matches in The Pit at Salinas High School in the city of Salinas, California, the alma mater of John Steinbeck. Prior to the 2005 season, the Samba played home games in a variety of different venues, including the Aptos Polo Grounds. The team's colors are silver, black and white.

1 Current squad
2 History
3 Year-by-year
4 Citations
5 External links

[edit] Current squad

As of October 13, 2006

No.		Position	Player
			Ahmad Ahmad
			Robert Arteaga
			Pierre Bernasconi
		DF	Chris Bessemer
			Mike Bielski
			Joseph Cairel
			Raul Cisneros
			Ivan Campos
			Mike Clark
			David Cordova
			Ryan Callahan
			Jason Dal Porto
		FW	David Estrada
		MF	David Frank
			Arnulfo Gomez
			Julio Gonzalez
			Ramon Hernandez
			Tommy Hernandez

No.		Position	Player
		FW	Ismael Ibarra
			Stephen Lopez
			Nick Lackey
		GK	Kyle Matthews
		GK	Cristian Materrazi
			Isaias Olivo
			Sergio Perez
			Lee Pricer
			John Ramirez
			Jonathon Reedy
			Erik Ruggiero
			Oscar Renteria
		MF	Joel Sanchez
			Lino Sanchez
			Ronnie Silva
			Jeffrey Stepan
			Nic Torricelli
			Armando Volpini

[edit] History

The Samba joined the MPSL at the end of the inaugural 2003 season, along with the Albuquerque Asylum, the Sonoma Valley Sol, the Sacramento Knights, and the Idaho Wolves. During their first season of play, the Samba finished the league in 5th place, five points behind the Utah Salt Ratz, who ultimately finished the season as league champions.

The 2005 season saw the development of location-specific conferences as more teams were added to the league. This placed Salinas Valley in the Western Conference, with a majority of California teams (with the exception of the Las Vegas Strikers and the Albuquerque Asylum.) The expansion of the league in 2006 brought further development of the conferences, as the Western Conference split into "Northwestern" and "Southwestern", and a Midwestern conference was added. The Salinas Valley Samba are currently in the Northwestern Conference.

The Samba finished the 2005 season in 4th place. Also in 2005 the Samba advanced to the second round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup before being defeated by the Seattle Sounders.

In 2006, they finished the year in 6th place.

[edit] Year-by-year

Year	Division	League	Reg. Season	Playoffs	Open Cup
2004	"4"	MPSL	5th	Did not qualify	Did not qualify
2005	"4"	NPSL	4th, Western	Did not qualify	Second Round
2006	"4"	NPSL	6th, Northwest	Did not qualify	Did not qualify