There will be no glory this season in the Copa Del Rey for CD Tenerife after going out 2-1 at home to Malaga last night.
The visiting Division 2 leaders had racked up 8 straight wins but brought a weakened team with 5 reserve players. Tenerife shuffled their pack too with Raul Navas taking over in goal and a new front line of Cristo, Arruabarrena and Ayoze. It worked well in the first half with Tenerife creating plenty of chances and showing more ideas up front.
Ayoze set up a good chance after 12 minutes but Cristo couldn’t get on the end of his cross. Ricardo blazed over the goal and Arruabarrena fired the ball into the side netting. Finishing was again proving to be a problem and after 24 minutes Iriome failed to make his shot count but defender Silva stuck out a foot and put the ball in his own net to make it 1-0 to CDT.
Into the second half and Tenerife slipped back into bad ways with shoddy passing and basic errors as Malaga grew in confidence. Navas made 2 great saves from headers 5 minutes in but the Malaga pressure was bound to pay. As the Tenerife defence was drawn off the ball, Eliseu rounded them and hit an equaliser that definately had a hint of offside about it.
From there on it seemed inevitable that Malaga would take the game and with 20 minutes to go Javi Ramos hit the winner from just outside the penalty area. Once again Tenerife had suffered for not killing off a game when on top.