Sameer Fathazada may be in his first year with KW United FC, but he is already playing like a veteran. The forward has already contributed to the stat sheet, scoring three goals on nine shots in his last four games with the club.

Playing football since he could walk, Fathazada got into the sport by looking up to his older brother.

"As far as I can remember, my brother used to go play and I'd used to go after him, pick up a ball, play, and I wanted to be like him," Fathazada said. "I enjoyed the sport a lot, so it grew onto me from there."

That is also the biggest thing that motivates him. To Fathazada, it is important to give back to the community and to where he came from, Kabul Afghanistan.

But he knew it wasn't going to be easy coming into his first season with the club.

"Coming into preseason here, I knew it wasn't going to be easy. I came in with a lot of motivation," he said. "I wanted to show the coach that I could play, and show the team that I could be here."

Fathazada is still learning. One of his biggest goals this year is to become a more complete player, and work towards becoming an all-round player that can contribute on both sides of the ball – offensively, and defensively.  Over the course of the first week with the club he feels that he has improved drastically, with the help of head coach Martin Painter, assistant coach Mario Halapir and coach Derek Salvador.

"Everybody is teaching me new things, and with their help, I feel I can become more complete by the end of the season, and step it up to the next level," he said.

One of Fathazada’s biggest experiences is his small stint with the Canadian men’s under-20 national team, when he participated in the men’s under-20 identification camp in August 2015. Even though his stint was cut short due to an ankle injury, Fathazada said that he enjoyed his experience with the team, learning new things and meeting new people.

The experience was also valuable to him when he joined KW United.

"Any experience in my opinion is valuable, especially on an international team," he said. "You learn new things, the game goes a lot quicker, you react faster.”

Coming into this season, Fathazada is poised to take the game to the next level in Canada, and passionate to give back to the KW community.

“KW is truly a family here. You see how united people are, how much investment there is from the outside,” he said. “Last game seeing close to 1000 fans was incredible.”