{"id":322253,"date":"2025-08-06T10:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T10:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/322253\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T10:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T10:27:10","slug":"southampton-forward-joins-sport-republics-valenciennes-on-loan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/322253\/","title":{"rendered":"Southampton forward joins Sport Republic&#8217;s Valenciennes on loan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  The Japan youth international, who joined the club earlier this year from Nissho Gakuen High School, will now spend the 2025\/26 season in the French Championnat National.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Takaoka, who is yet to play senior football in his burgeoning career, has trained\u00a0with the third-tier outfit during pre-season.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He is set to play for the club&#8217;s &#8216;reserve&#8217; team and will become the first\u00a0Japanese player to represent\u00a0Valenciennes.\n<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>\n    Rento Takaoka rejoint l\u2019\u00e9quipe r\u00e9serve du <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/VAFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#VAFC<\/a> sous la forme d\u2019un pr\u00eat d\u2019une saison en provenance de la formation de <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SouthamptonFC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@SouthamptonFC<\/a> \ud83d\udc4b<\/p>\n<p>L\u2019attaquant valenciennois est le premier joueur japonais \u00e0 porter les couleurs de VA \ud83c\uddef\ud83c\uddf5<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcdd Plus d\u2019infos : <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XtQUD03D5A\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/XtQUD03D5A<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sGjSKLIT03\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/sGjSKLIT03<\/a>\n  <\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Valenciennes FC \ud83e\udda2 (@VAFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VAFC\/status\/1953003165449658499?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 6, 2025<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\n  READ:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyecho.co.uk\/news\/25364405.saints-academy-talents-look-2025-26-season\/?rel=cl_mra\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Saints academy talents to look out for during 2025\/26 season<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Andy Goldie, head of group talent strategy at Southampton, said:\u00a0&#8220;Rento&#8217;s loan arrival at Valenciennes is an important step in our youth development strategy.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Rento is a young talent we recruited from Japan. He&#8217;s a Japanese international who played in the U17 World Cup last year.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Valenciennes is a great <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailyecho.co.uk\/news\/campaigns\/greenwatch\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">environment<\/a> to help him progress this season.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Simon Raux, director of the VAFC training centre, added: &#8220;Rento&#8217;s arrival is truly symbolic in relation to the Sport Republic group and the mutualisation between the clubs.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   alt=\"Valenciennes and Saints played a pre-season friendly against each other last month.\" style=\"width: 100%;\"\/>Valenciennes and Saints played a pre-season friendly against each other last month. (Image: Southampton FC\/Matt Watson)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;There was the departure of Joachim Kayi Sanda last year to Southampton, and this year, there is Rento&#8217;s loan to VAFC.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;It&#8217;s an enriching experience for all the players and all the parties.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  A statement from Saints added: &#8220;The club wishes Rento well for the coming season and looks forward to following his progress.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Takaoka is the second Saints youngster to join Valenciennes this summer, following defender Derrick Abu, who joined on a free transfer at the end of his contract at St Mary&#8217;s.\n<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Japan youth international, who joined the club earlier this year from Nissho Gakuen High School, will now&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[94,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-322253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114981348668349158","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}