Ajaccio pay £391k to bring Vidal in from Troyes
The goalkeeper’s move gives AC Ajaccio a new challenger for the gloves, with Israel Marcos already firmly in the picture.
“I’m here to compete,” Gaëtan Vidal could say. AC Ajaccio have paid £391k to bring the 28-year-old goalkeeper from ESTAC Troyes, completing the move on 13 September.
The fee is modest enough to avoid grand claims about a revolution. The stakes are more immediate: Vidal arrives at a Ligue 2 BKT club with a place to fight for, not a shirt guaranteed to him.
Israel Marcos is the man in front of him. Marcos made 32 league starts over the recent two-season stretch, a substantial foothold for Vidal to prise away. Ajaccio have bought competition, then, and the new arrival will need to turn that opportunity into something more than a line on the squad list.
Vidal brings experience across six clubs and 207 club appearances, all without a goal. That is hardly a statistic a goalkeeper needs to apologise for. His task is to make the case where it counts: between the posts.
He leaves ESTAC Troyes, a Ligue 1 Uber Eats side, for Ajaccio in France’s second tier. The change in division is plain; what it means for his standing in the pecking order is not settled by the transfer fee. Marcos has the recent run of starts. Vidal has the chance to challenge it.
There is a familiar thread between the clubs, too. Gwendal Ulrich, now at Ajaccio, spent the stretch from 2049/50 to 2063/64 at Troyes, making 161 appearances and winning a trophy there. A useful old connection, but not the reason this deal matters. Ajaccio have spent £391k on a goalkeeper who must now earn his place.