Welcome to Wish You Were Here, this week we visit one of the hottest spots in Europe, the Heliodoro stadium in Santa Cruz, Tenerife. Well it felt like that, both teams had complained during the week, about the 4pm kick off time, and their worst fears were realised – it was scorching hot, the fans were sweating buckets (bet your glad this isn’t scratch and sniff) but the players set off at a cracking pace. A 2-1 win was just reward for the superior skill of Tenerife, even if Osasuna did end up with only 9 players.
Tenerife just edged the opening exchanges, Nino had the first real chance when Ricardo set him up after 10 minutes, but he failed to make it count. Alfaro and Luna both had clear chances to score, Alfaro put his shot over the bar and Luna put a free header wide. Osasuna had their moments, Camunas was through on goal but Sergio Aragonoses was quick to take the ball and snuff out the chance.
Into the second half, Osasuna soon found themselves a man down, Monreal picked up a second yellow card for hand ball and was on his way. Tenerife cashed in straight away, Ricardo lobbed a great ball through to Nino, and he slipped it under the keeper for a 1-0 lead. CDT were caught napping a few minutes later from a corner, the ball was floated in and Pandiani rose to head an equaliser.
Maybe it would take something special to seal this game, that’s certainly what we got. Kome popped the ball back to Ricardo and he unleashed a 25 metre rocket into the top corner of the net to restore the lead. It got worse for Osasuna, their Iranian mi¡dfielder Nekounam fouled Roman Martinez and got a straight red to reduce his team to 9 players. Tenerife could have added to the scoreline, Alfaro went close and Richi missed with his header. Maybe it was the heat or the lack of a full team, but Osasuna faded and Tenerife finished the stronger to claim that vital first La Liga win.