It’s official CD Tenerife are better than Wigan Athletic, well semi official. A convincing 1-0 win for CD Tenerife in La Orotava made it three straight friendly wins, this time against La Liga opposition Real Zaragoza, a few days after they won in England 3-1 at Wigan. Nino took his pre season tally to 6 goals and although Zaragoza put out a weakened side, Tenerife were all over them for most of the game.

It was a change from our usual northern runs for Santa Cruz home games, given an extra twist by the leg crossing need for a leak by Mrs Moron. We dipped off the motorway and down into Las Caletillas just past Candelaria and found a nice bar for the emptying and filling of various alcoholic liquids, at least we boosted there trade for the day. As we cut across through La Laguna and past El Sauzal, the clouds closed in and our 30 degree start point seemed another continent away. Getting off our sawn off coach, not enough numbers for the full size bus, at La Orotava it had dropped a good 10 degrees but that didn’t worry us as we found many of the other CDT fans at our usual bar up a steep back street. After a few Dorada’s we headed up to the ground, the evening dusk lit up by a couple of blazing fire crackers, The General had already sorted out the 12 euro tickets for us. The ground was pretty packed, about 6,000, so we made our way to the far corner to welcome the players onto the pitch.

From the kick off it was clear that Zaragoza didn’t have their strongest line up but CD Tenerife again played good football and soon got their reward. Ricardo, looking commanding in midfield, set up Nino after 11 minutes and his finishing was clinical making it 6 goles in 3 friendlies. Midfield was working well with Juanlu making good breaks, and defence looked a lot tighter, thanks in part to David Prieto who looks a wise signing for the centre of defence.

Both sides made changes for the second half, Zaragoza brought on former Arsenal and Liverpool forward Jermaine Pennant and he must have been delighted to hear so many English voices welcoming him. We were able to offer him honest assesments of his past performances, valuable career advice, and even suggestions for leisure activities he may like to indulge in. Tenerife kept the upper hand, Omar made a big impression that was to earn him the man of the match award and the defence was so good they restricted Zaragoza to very few chances. The only bad points were injuries to Sergio Aragonoses, Omar and Pablo Sicilia. The final whistle signalled a pitch invasion as the Teide Trophy was awarded and players signed autographs, even Pennant posed graciously with his tormentors. Overcome with emotion, and rather a few Dorada’s, the Morons missed the coach as we sailed off down to the south with more reasons to look forward to the league campaign with hope.