Tahiti: It’s ended the Winter MERCATO 2020. Let’s see what’s happened.

🇮🇹 Italiano 🇮🇹

by Dario Focardi

In Tahiti, the mid-season market window ended on Sunday 5 January. More than 150 contracts have been filed in the offices of the FTF (the Tahitian football federation). Let’s see which are the most important transfers that have been settled.

First of all it is important to underline that the team that is currently at the top of the Ligue 1 Vini championship, AS Venus, has decided not to intervene on the market to change their team. The Mahina town team officials are convinced that with their actual players already under contract they can be competitive in bothe Ligue 1 Vini and OFC Champions League.

By their side, the AS Tiare Tahiti, second league force, has purchased 5 players, three from tahitians clubs, and two foreigners from Benin: Brison Avodage, from JAC FC, and Bio Odo Chabi, from Soleil FC in Cotonou. Then AS Dragon has secured one of its most interesting future prospects, seventeen-year-old central striker Denji Kaina. Author of 3 goals in 3 appearances in the Tahitian U17 up to now he played in the Olympique de Mahina.

The AS Tefana, who started playing well just before the Christmas break, bought two players from France Kevin Gill, from the Case Nice Football Senior amateur team of the capital of the Cote d’Azur, and Arthur Duval, from the Tour d ‘Auvergne of Rennes which is a Breton amateur team, and is also waiting for the international transfer to register the expert player Jim Katawa Ouka, who has played in the last season in the neo-Caledonian AS Magenta finalist of the last OFC Champions League. Ouka, who has played in the various youth selections of his country, is best known for his goal in the senior national team against Tahiti in the 2015 Pacific Games final.

The AS Central Sport, 7th in the standings, has been very busy on this market window. They hired 2 Canadian players: Ospina Camilo Saenza, from Dynamo Québec who plays the PLSQ which is the third Canadian football category, and William Vandal, 19-year-old goalkeeper who comes from the Academy of the Impact of Montreal, who plays the US Major League Soccer. The AS Central Sport also has acquired some Tahitian players: Winifred Faatomo, Mikael Lenoir et Hervé, Manavarere et Navairua Tahioterai.

At the bottom of the rankings Olympique Mahina, who deprived himself of his best forward Kaina, added Teinaore Seino, Tavae Guyon and Natan Decarriere in pink. AS Pirae, who occupies third place in the league but with 2 games less than 3 points to recover on AS Venus, has moved only 2 players who serve to shore up the squad but has not touched the 11 owner. In conclusion, taking a look at Ligue 2, the movements of AS Arue and AS Excelsior jump to the eye and are proposed to overwhelmingly climb Ligue 1 with 8 arrivals each.