IN 2013, when the AFL in its wisdom named its Multicultural Team of Champions, Carlton greats Stephen Silvagni, Anthony Koutoufides and Alex Jesaulenko were all named in the starting 18, the latter having been further honoured with the team’s captaincy.

Fast forward 12 years, to Saturday’s Cultural Heritage Series fixture with North Melbourne at the MCG, and how fitting that Adam Saad - the son of Lebanese-born migrants and Carlton’s first League footballer of the Muslim faith - should turn out for his 100th senior match for the Club.

Saad will take to the field ever mindful of the sacrifices made by his father and mother prior to the Lebanese Civil War of 1975, in traversing the globe from the tiny village of Denbo on the Syrian border to the inner city Melbourne suburb of Brunswick East in Victoria, Australia.

The Saad family will doubtless turn out in their droves to see their boy break the banner for game No.100 - thereby ensuring his name is forever etched into the No.42 locker beneath those of the late Robert Walls and Zach Tuohy.

Also watching on will be Milham Hanna, the Lebanese-born boy from East Brunswick whose 190 games in 12 seasons with Carlton included the meritorious 1995 Grand Final on that great ground some 30 years ago.

Hanna has once met Saad. First impressions were of a quietly spoken, humble man whose football actions very much do the talking.

“Before Adam came to Carlton I’d only seen him fleetingly at Gold Coast, then Essendon, and could see that he was an attacking player, but since coming to Carlton he’s been a star,” Hanna said.

“He’d been in our top half a dozen players. He’s been sensational. He doesn’t fumble, he never loses a one-on-one even if he’s on someone slightly bigger, and I like him under pressure when he finds a way out of the heat with his quick feet and his quick hands. He’s one player you really depend upon.”

As a dyed-in-the-wool East Brunswick boy, Hanna has long been considered one of Carlton’s last great local talents – an incredible state of affairs given that the Northern Lebanese town of Kantara was home for the first five years of his life, until he decamped a Melbourne-bound jet with his younger sister and their mother on Cup Day 1971.

As the first of the League’s Lebanese-born footballers, Hanna is mindful of his place in history.

“When you see more players like Adam coming through it gives you a sense of pride that you might have inspired a young kid along the way, and that it’s possible to play AFL whether you’re Lebanese, Chinese or whatever,” Hanna said.

That Saad is also dedicated to his faith has not been lost on Hanna, who was born and raised Maronite (Roman Catholic) and was a parishioner at the local Maronite Church in Rathdowne Street. As he said: “I think I’d struggle to discipline myself as a practising Muslim, so all power to Adam”.

“If I had the chance to speak to Adam I would say to him: ‘What an incredible job you’ve done’. It’s not easy to come from a completely different background and excel in one of the most difficult sports in Australia – and for him to be at the peak of his powers at his third club speaks of his resilience.

“I can’t think of too many players going around who have peaked at their third club, other than Jesse Hogan."

Saad’s 100th game clearly provides the League’s Cultural Heritage Series with an exclamation mark, which hasn’t been lost on Hanna either – and the following is his take:

“For me it’s neither here nor there, as I look at people and it doesn’t matter to me where they come from . . . but I do appreciate the fact that there hasn’t been a Muslim play in the history of Carlton.”