A goalie a goalie, my kingdom for a goalie, well maybe it wasn’t that urgent but a lot of interest had been voiced about getting a more experienced back up CD Tenerife keeper to shadow Sergio Aragoneses. What better time then for our two young stoppers to show their best qualities.
Roberto was first in the spotlight in the home friendly with Osasuna and he did his reputation the world of good with a couple of strong early takes. The Primera visitors didn’t look that good but somehow sneaked an 11th minute lead through Ariel and wouldn’t you know it the telling pass was supplied by Mr Popular Marc Bertran. The former Tenerife full back and captain was roundly booed at every turn after he bailed out as we slid into Segunda B, I always thought he was over rated and towards the end of his time in the blue and white he often looked uninterested.
Chechu is another player that some fans, myself included, saw as at best a fringe player in the Segunda, he has had a lively start to the friendlies and opened up Osasuna after 19 minutes with a determined run down the right before planting the ball in the net to level. Roberto made a decisive intervention of a high cross just after that and ended the half with an inspiring double save.
Despite lots of changes Tenerife kept their shape in the second half and soon grabbed a winner with another classy goal, this time it was Oscar Rico after good work from Ayoze. Osasuna had little to offer after that, the 4,285 crowd was left to practice chants and songs and admire the latest B team prospect Amorin who made a sound second half debut.
Onto Wednesday and a trip to El Fraile to play Ibarra. Meeting in the little bar opposite the ground we got stuck into the owners Dorada stocks, well at one euro a bottle it would have been rude not to. Ground entry was just eight euros and we got in Justin time for the presentations and kick off. This time Nauzet the third choice goalie was between the sticks and from the start he looked secure and confident. Cristo Martin took just three minutes to open the scoring with an opportunist goal and things were looking good. After ten minutes the Guardia Civil stopped the in ground bar from serving beer, that didn’t go down well with anyone, if it had been in the UK we could have bleated about having our human rights infringed.
Ibarra were keen and put pressure on Tenerife, after 30 minutes Roberto was tested and made a great save followed soon after by a strong punched clearance. Kike Rivero, already looking a good signing, reacted well to pounce for our second goal just before the half time whistle. With dry throats at our end of the ground Gordon did the decent thing and sneaked out to buy up the canned beer supplies from a local shop and sneaked them in over the fence. A sneaky beer always tastes better and we were soon in good voice again, just in time to see sub Suso latch on to an Ayoze pass for our third strike of the night. That was about it for the game and we streamed out with the rest of the 600 crowd at the end happy with another winning game with no goals conceded. Let’s hope this form continues into the serious matches.