Laughing, singing, and guzzling Dorada. What a happy bunch the Armada Sur were before the first home league game v Sevilla Atletico. But then news began to filter through that La Laguna born Nano would not be returning from injury but would be leaving CD Tenerife to join Primera division Eibar for 3.2 million euros. Ninety minutes later heads were down but bottles still up after a poor 1-1 draw including 69 minutes with a man advantage.
There was some joy left to us pre game, Choco Lozano was back from Olympic duty with Honduras – albeit before racking up more air miles to return home for World Cup qualifiers. Cristo Gonzalez started as Choco’s strike partner but the first chance fell to Sevilla’s Matos who drilled his shot straight into Sani Hernandez waiting arms. Raul Camara made a strong interception to snuff out another attempt and his ball up to Cristo looked like setting up a home chance but he was crowded out by defenders. The last thing Tenerife needed was an unforced error but that’s what happened, Cotan couldn’t believe his luck when Jorge made a soft half attempt at a tackle that gifted the ball to the Sevilla player who placed it perfectly in the back of the home goal after 19 minutes.
Maybefate was going to even out, visiting striker Ivi forearmed Raul Camara over and then stamped on his leg, the red card couldn’t have come out of the refs pocket quick enough. There wasn’t any significant shift in the balance of play, Aitor Sanz recovered well to mop up his own mistake in losing the ball and Choco tested the Sevilla keeper but it remained 0-1 at half time. Choco put the ball the wrong side of the post just after the break and. Marc Crosas took over from Aitor Sanz adding his impressive distribution of the ball from midfield, Cristo had a couple of decent attempts but it wasn’t quite coming off. Choco gave us a sight of the gold medal when he slotted home a Cristo pass for a 67 minute leveler, surely the win would now come. Ale Pipo replaced Alex Garcia and despite looking a little out of his depth he gave plenty of effort.
Choco and Cristo worked hard to try to break the deadlock, Choco got up well to a high ball only to have it snatched away by an alert Soriano in the Sevilla goal. The keeper was willing to use any means possible to repel Tenerife, already booked he continued to blatantly waste time as the game went on, the ref resisted the urge to give him a deserved second yellow. Inaki did his late push on the left sending in teasing crosses and corners, Cristo in particular wasted a couple. The game fizzled out into a 1-1 draw leaving the 7,959 crowd praying that Nano’s transfer money is put to good use before the transfer window slams shut at the end of the month.