Ring Ring….ah hello is that Injury Lawyers For You? Can I make a group claim against CD Tenerife on behalf of their fans, for breaking their hearts. I went to the crunch home game v Valladolid believing that this was the most important game in the survival battle but the team put in a gutless sloppy performance to draw 0-0.
Every time it gets tougher the fans dip a bit deeper into their bottomless well of passion, turning up early to greet CDT as they arrive at the stadium, more banners and tifo, rallying calls for action from all the peñas (fan clubs) and non stop chanting and singing on the terraces. Drawing or losing isn’t a sin as long as the players put their hearts into it, from the start against Valladolid, CD Tenerife showed no drive, no urgency and made unforced error after error.
The free fall visitors hadn’t scored in 3 games and had replaced their manager with Javier Clemente, a former CDT coach, with CDT 6 points adrift from safety and Valladolid just a point behind it was there for the taking. There was an early scare as Nauzet got clear but his soft shot hardly troubled Sergio in the home goal, Nino went wide soon after but the chances were few and far between in a dire first half that showed why both teams are deep in the relegation pooh. Early in to the game the scoreboard flashed up struggling Malaga’s home defeat to Sevilla, another incentive to go and grab the game but Tenerife didn’t respond.
Richi put the ball in the visitors net at the half hour mark but it was well offside and just a brief ray of hope. Tenerife couldn’t hold on to the ball, didn’t know what to do when they had it and there were no ideas coming from midfield. Ricardo was having his worst game in CDT colours, Nino looked lost up front, Alfaro had no spark and no one seemed to want to lead the team. The second half was just as bad, Sergio provided a lighter moment, racing out of his goal to clear an incoming ball with a flying header, but it was pretty grim.
Dinei came on for Juanlu to add some height but missed nearly all the headers he went for and Valladolid started to get a few chances, one a near gift as a looping back pass saw a mad scramble in front of goal. Alfaro headed over a decent chance before departing to make way for Mikel Alonso, our best holding midfielder, out of favour in recent weeks. So into the final furlong and Tenerife still looked pretty clueless, there were no Grand National winners here, just a load of tired old nags heading for the glue factory.
Many of the 15,800 crowd started to leave in the final ten minutes disheartened and let down by their heroes. You would need to be mad to want to watch this shower again, but we will be glued to the TV for the away game at Sporting on Tuesday night, back in the Heliodoro next Sunday for Getafe’s visit, and hundreds of us are booked up for the remaining away games. Yes we are mad, madly loyal and committed but it hurts when the management and players don’t seem to share that same burning desire.