With La Liga fast approaching, CD Tenerife need as many positives as they can get from the pre season friendlies, this 5-0 win over UD Lanzarote, could easily have been a double figure win. Angel and Omar stole the show combining well up front and tearing the Lanzarote defence to shreds.
The most difficult thing about the whole evening was finding a bar, 2 cars of Armada Sur drove up and eventually found the ground at the remote edge of La Laguna, then thanks to missleading directions from locals, we did a wide circular sweep of some dead end roads before ending back where we started. Striking out in another direction, we soon found some of our friends from the Frente Blanquiazul and knew a bar must be nearby. The area we headed into was the Urbanization Espirides, a mix of large grand houses and and small rough roads, eventually we found Bar Goya and lubricated the voices. There were a few strange regulars at the bar, one who looked like Neptune after a very rough night, and another arrived in a ramshackle old car covered in dents and scratches, after parking up the driver nearly fell out and got through 3 large glasses of wine before falling back into the car and driving off – maybe he was the local mayor?
Anyway back to the ground, as the watery sun dissapeared behind large grey swathes of cloud sweeping in to make it distinctly chilly. A flat rate 5 euros entry was good value, the stadium looked well worn and had an athletics track and long jump pits at the side. We had hardly settled when Angel latched onto an Alonso cross and gave CDT a first minute lead, to set the tone for the game. Lanzarote had little to offer, having just scraped a sidse together after avoiding another financial meltdown.
Ayoze set up Angel for a second after 17 minutes, and the speedy firecracker Omar made it 3 on the half hour with a great finish. During the half time break, we met up with Ian Lane a Brit who does the merchandising for Lanzarote, I met him on a weeks trip over ther 18 months ago, when i took in a game. The Reds were staying in Puerto de la Cruz overnight, and exchanging views, just confirmed that both clubs directors are hard to deal with and very resistant to change from outsiders.
Back to the game, and it was all one way traffic by now, the Lanzarote goalie performed heroics to keep the score down but Angel was on lethal form an added 2 more goals to ensure a comfortable win. Tenerife fans were in a subdued mood, reality beckons and the club have not come through with the promised new signings, young guns like Angel and Omar may well find themselves on a very steep learning curve against hardened La Liga players. This Saturdays presentation game against Nijmegen , back in Santa Cruz has become another cause of friction, traditionally this last showpiece friendly is free to season ticket holders, but it has now become 10 euros for all, with the money going to help the fire victims of La Palma. A commendable cause but imposing the donation on all the fans has not gone down well, add a general feeling that the euphoria of promotion has been partially lost, and the scene is set for possible storm clouds over Santa Cruz.