Alexander Banj

Alexander at the Photo Booth

**Alexander Banj** (15 March 2000) is a Blueball player who plays as a striker for Rutherford Rangers on loan from Restoria currently, but played a winger for the first two years of his career. He is considered the best player of his generation, winning 4 Mi' Awards and 2 World Cups for his national team, one in 2019 and 2020. He is renowned for his speedy pace and sportsmanship.

## Early Life

Banj was born to a legend of the game, Josh Banj who played professionally as a dispatcher in 1985 to his retirement in 2018, playing alongside his son in his national team for the 2016 Oakland Cup, which would be his last reward. When Christian was at a speech asked about his baby, he said **"He will be one of the greatest Blueball players out there - it is guaranteed!"** in the 2000 World Cup interview. He went on the win the title and two months later, Alexander was born.

Growing up, he enjoyed playing the game and joined the Queenstown Academy at the age of eight. He scored 25 goals in his first youth season as a midfielder. His coach, Abraham King (who played professionally from 1984 to 2005) converted him to an attacking dispatcher in the second season, scoring 85 goals and winning the **Best Academy Player** after winning the U-10 World Cup for Sogi. He scored another 96 in his third and his final season he scored 140 goals. (Seasons = 13 weeks). He turned ten soon and started playing professionally for the tween league-registered team which was Galliax, where his father played for 10 years. His coach was Samson Brown, who also played and captained the professional adult team from 1987 to 2006. Recently retired, Brown was offered a contract to manage the tween academy for 40,000 dollars a week. He became a winger and started his season off with **700** goals, then at the end of his academy contract he scored around **12,000**. He was offered a 4-year-contract by Brown as a winger and signed. At the age of 14, he was transferred to the teen side to the club and won the Best Player of the Academy by the Sogi Sports Association.

## Debut and Early Career

He then got scouted and underwent a trial season for the 2014-2015 season by Queenstown B.C. Scoring 750 goals to win the Under 14 Sogi Blueball League, he was offered his first contract by the professional counterpart of the team. The contract made him on bench as a winger and earning 6,000,000 dollars a year. He made his debut on the 22nd of June 2015, which was Match-day 4 out of 64. 5 minutes after halftime, at the 65th minute, he was set replacement for the brilliant winger, Brian Yusuf, who got injured accidentally by the opposing goalkeeper, Richard Hays, who had got a yellow card for the foul. His tackling and interception was rapid and he scored his first goal in the 74th minute. By the end of the match, he scored two hat-tricks (60 goals) and made the starting ten becoming the youngest player. He soon was called for his international debut in the 2015 World Cup as a right dispatcher-winger (attacking dispatcher). His debut was on the 26th of September, 2015. Banj scored 25 goals in the first group stage match. He then scored another 40 in the second, and the 55 in the final. They topped their group and played in the knockout. They beat Cole 39-10 and General Union Empire 58-52. However, in the semi-finals, they got beaten by Stonebridge 40-39. **"Shame to lose my first ever World Cup. That's because my dad isn't here. He got injured and that's why we lost."** Banj then won the league. That was his first achievement, and he looked proud as ever. He then won his first Mi' Award on December 24th. He then became the captain for the 2015-2015 season.

## Present

In 2016, he converted his role to a Striker-Dispatcher. He scored 234 goals in the season. He later again was called to play in the World Cup this time as the captain and as Striker. He beat Pleas 4-1, Charlestown 5-4 and Bavern 61-60 in the group stage, and beat Northern Bavern 596-492, Villa 6-4, Cole 59-50 and in the semi-finals beat Coleland in ijuckas 6-2. Sogi had reached the finals. It was against Charlestown and Charlestown had a new manager. He won the World Cup and he took it home. He won the second Mi' Award in the 2016-2017 season, scoring well over 1,200 goals in the match season and 1,300 in his preseason. He won the Best Young Player award with 46,583 votes. In the 2017-2018 season, his father announced his retirement in the 2018-2019 season. They both won the Oakland Cup on the 12th of March 2018. His father then retired on the 4th of April internationally, and quit his real club career on the 18th of April. His father was on bench during the last match that his father was playing. Both strikers, the manager (Isaac Powers) decided to replace the Left Winger, Marcus Nashville with Josh Banj in the 4th minute. Nashville later rejoined the game as the right winger in the 12th minute after getting permit from umpire, James Smith. Josh scored his 1,000th goal for Queenstown after three years signing with the club. Then his son, Alexander scored his 2,000th goal in the fiftieth minute and Alexander then was thereafter replaced in the 105th minute. The game went to stoppage time (120+7). The match ended at 5:46 PM on the 19th of April (3 days before Transfer Time). That was also his final day.

In the 2019-2020 season, Queenstown transferred Alexander to Sogi Second Tier (SST) team Jaguars, which was one of the teams in Queenstown. Jaguars was the brother club of Queenstown and Jaguars had a chance to get promoted to the SCT (Sogi Champions Tier). This was on-loan. The two teams had agreed on 5,000,000 USD to be paid by Jaguars and 5,500,000 USD to be paid by Queenstown. His debut was on the 23rd of March, 2019, twelve days after the contract. Alexander scored 234 goals in the first two months, but he got an injury from defender Robert Peterson on the 2nd of April. No medical rooms, he fainted on pitch at 4.20pm. One of his Queenstown teammates, Brian Holmes was the linesman of the match. Holmes paused the match and called the medic of Queenstown. At 5.10pm, when the match was near halftime, the medic and some paramedics came and took the player in a stretcher. Driving to the medical centre, he woke up at 5.15pm, and he said to the paramedic who was monitoring the medical bag, 'Oh why. They don't have enough funding?' The paramedic replied, 'Yeah, spent it all on the transfer, I've heard.' They reached the medical centre at 5.40pm and the physiotherapist said he had a concussion. He would miss twelve matches and if he didn't recover, he would miss out the entire league. Thankfully he recovered fast and was back on his feet on the 5th of May, missing out only eleven. He was released and was set to retire by Jaguars. He then started playing in non-league football for a week until he was scouted again by Queenstown. Missing on over thirteen matches, he was beaten in scores by William Richards, who was at the twilight of his career. He had scored 2,697 and Banj had scored 2,443. He had to work hard again. Banj then showed his revenge at Jaguars in the Golden Club Trophy, scoring over 5,486 goals in 93 minutes before being sent off for hostility against the Jaguars manager in the 94th minute. He was voted Player of the Month and won the Club Hero Award and the Best Comeback from Injury award. He later played in the triennial international tournament, 4 Nations. The top 4 nations with the highest rating in Blueball in this cup was Pleas, Charlestown, Cole and Sogi. He won the Semi-Finals against Charlestown 4-2 and won the 4 Nations final against Cole in 38-1. After the international break, he won the league and progressed to the 2020-2021 preseason. He won the Mi' Award for the third time. He signed a contract with the Queenstown board for a 15-year-contract for 3.4 billion dollars. On June 21 2023, he ended his contract prematurely and joined Restoria along with Hill Anthony and Calvin Phillips, who got work as a manager.