A van (well minibus) full of lean mean mercenaries scorched their way up the motorway leaving overturned cars (one in the other lane) as they headed for the big city. Okay it wasn’t quite the A Team, just some of the Armada Sur off to Santa Cruz. After a few cancellations Mallorca were eventually announced as the opponents for this last pre season friendly, the big presentation game in the Heliodoro, a good test,, and one that CD Tenerife passed with flying colours during a convincing 2-0 win.
Many of the local bars, including our usual watering hole, were closed for a summer break so we made do with one of the small shops come bar just outside the top end of the stadium. A decent sized crowd was gathering and we were full of hope, and a few doradas, as we filed into the Grada Popular. The team line up was more or less coach Arconada’s strongest pick for the new season, only a week away now, Sergio Aragoneses was still recovering from injury and Luis Garcia (below)kept the goalkeeping gloves. The big interest was in debut signing Melli at the heart of a defence that has leaked goals in the last few friendlies.
From the start the game was played at a good pace with both sides getting chances, Omar and Nino both had sniffs for CDT and Garcia was given a stern examination. In the past his handling of high balls has made us cringe but he was confident and clean in the air and made some outstanding saves. Melli looked at home and was soon bossing his defensive mates around, that’s exactly what we need, a commanding leader, Prieto looked good as well alongside him and full backs Bertran and Beranger had solid games. Just before half time Natalio made it 1-0 from a Bertran cross, a well deserved lead.
The club did the same annoying thing as the last presentation game, left the lights off on the stadium surround area behind the seats, this made negotiating the steps fun and urinating on guesswork was the order of the day in the toilets. Anyway we all made our way back to our terrace spots with wet legs and hoped for better shooting from our players. Mallorca’s new Danish coach Michael Laudrup is still tinkering with his side but they still have most of the players that earned them fifth spot in La Liga. Tenerife were playing some good football, Hidalgo looked good in midfield and when Nino banged in a rebound from his partly blocked corner, it was no huge surprise.
Mass changes followed later in the game but CDT still offered plenty and Garcia made some more impressive saves to cap his best performance for the blanquiazuls. The win was warmly greeted by the crowd of 7,897 and after eventually escaping our underground car park we had a happy trip home with DJ General supplying some hot sounds from The Human League – the sad thing is most of us knew all the words.