The Oceania Champions League kicks off in Auckland today with three teams that were absent last year making a return to the region's premier football competition.
Nadi of Fiji, AS Magenta from New Caledonia and Samoa's Kiwi FC are all in action, alongside regulars AS Tefana from Tahiti.
Kiwi qualified by winning the OFC Preliminary in February.
Samoa football champions Kiwi FC celebrate winning the OFC Champions League Preliminary. Photo: Oceania Football
Coach Martin Tamasese will be without most of his key import players but remained optimistic about their chances.
"When we heard that news about most of our players are not available it was not a problem to us. We are confident and we know that we still have some quality players that can play for us for the O-League. We have watched some of Nadi and those (other) two teams previous games so we have studied some of the games and we know their key players in some of them, so we are preparing for when we play."
Nadi and Tefana open the tournament this afternoon before Kiwi take on Magenta.
Auckland City are the five time defending champs with the overall winners to qualify for December's Club World Cup in Japan.
