Another new dawn for CD Tenerife but this season we are promised a largely young squad of Canarian born players. Expectation and reality may be on seperate tracks but hopefully they will begin to converge as the new crop grows in experience and confidence under the latest coach Alvaro Cervera who spent some of his formative years as a CDT youth player. Before this first leg of the Copa Mahou Canarias we were bracing ourselves for a pounding from The Pios smug on their lofty perch a division above us but a strong defensive display and some poor Las Palmas finishing produced a comendable 0-0 draw.

It was difficult to work out who was who among the new faces as the players wore last seasons shirts and no information was given on the stadium scoreboard – to be fair they could have come round and whispered the changes individually to the crowd,the official 2,382 was wildly generous, it it wasn’t for the ever loyal, ever vocal Frente Blanquiazul and a full coach of Armada Sur the stadium would have been like a ghost town. Las Palmas clearly had the edge in terms of preparation and experience but they never made it count, Aragoneses was a little lucky when he pulled down Deived after the half hour but the home defence looked calm and well organised particularly right back Javi Moyano (above). Tenerife looked light up front despite Aridane turning in a decent display, the 17 year old goal scoring sensation Ayoze from the youth team looks like a strong breeze migh snap him in two but that is something that can be worked on.

From our half time vantage point on the outside ring of the stadium we could see a fire in a local shop had roused a full range of emergency service vehicles and staff – maybe the club added them all onto the attendance figure. At the break the bench rang the first of eight changes to the playing line up, when Medina and Chechu were added they made a difference to the weak midfield and Loro had a couple of genuine chances. German looked quite lively but at the moment it’s not clear where our goals are going to come from. The Pios hit the woodwork twice and looked suitably frustrated, they will see this as a bad result in their build up, for Tenerife it was a useful warm up, the new coaches influence could be seen but he knows there is a lot of work and hopefully another couple of signings before the Segunda B campaign starts.