IFK Mariehamn has found its last piece of the puzzle in the team building for 2023. Attacker Ariel “Tuco” Ngueukam has agreed on a contract for this season with Grönvitt.
The 34-year-old Ngueukam has a long history in Finnish league football. He has played over 220 games in the league and scored over 70 goals. He began his Finnish league career in FC Lahti in 2012 and played last year in Ilves. He has also managed to represent KuPS and SJK. Last year he played 25 league matches and accounted for 6 goals in Ilves.
The 188 cm tall Cameroonian Tuco is a distinct central attacking player who also plays outside forward. He is almost bipedal.
– I have always thought that it has been nice to play football here in Mariehamn. It is a small town, but that also means that you can better focus on football. There is a lot of potential in the team if we only look to last year, when IFK won and drew at home against the best teams in the league. Many matches were ok but they lost some matches sometimes too easily, says Tuco in IFK Mariehamn’s press release.
– I think this season to be better. Getting top 5 should be the minimum goal this year. IFK Mariehamn has been in the league for many years and the difference up to the first 5 teams was not that big last year. First of all, I want to bring experience and joy to the team and hopefully score goals, comments Tuco.
– We have been looking for a distinct central striker and we feel that we have now found that in Tuco. We now hopefully get a good mix of younger promising offensive players and experienced players like Tuco, comments club director Peter Mattsson
Tuco comes to Mariehamn this weekend and will train with the team for the first time on Sunday. If everything goes as planned, he will be in the squad for the league opener at home against Ilves on Wednesday, April 5.
In connection with the agreement with Tuco, it is now also clear that IFK Mariehamn will not sign an agreement with Nicholas Hamilton, who has been on trial for the past two weeks.
Source: IFK Mariehamn’s press release
