The World Cup was a nice distraction but you can’t beat live football, that’s why I was tingling with excitement, singing football songs in the shower, and slipping on my CD Tenerife shirt with a renewed sense of pride and expectation. It’s become a traditional curtain raiser now to play at CD Marino in the first friendly so I headed down to the Royal Oak 2 to meet the Armada Sur, a chance to meet some good friends again and pick up my laughably cheap (125 euros)Â new season ticket.
It had been another baking day and the cold beer was very welcome, a large crowd of us had gathered and set off for the short walk to the Las Americas stadium. Part way down the road someone, who obviously we didn’t know and hadn’t met before, let off a big red smoke flare which illuminated some wild singing before being thrown across the road to smoulder on the waste ground. At this point a police van cruised by and pulled up, whoops time to stride on fast, the police went across and put out the sparking flare and thankfully didn’t try to snuff us out as well. Passing the small annex stadium we could see the huge stage and rig for the Saturday night Alejandro Fernandez concert.
Negotiating the long queue and paying the 10 euros entrance, well it’s CD Marino’s main source of income for the season, we passed the same raffle prizes that were on display last year and headed for the bar as the minutes ticked down to kick off. As always the bar staff used to home crowds of barely 200 struggled to cope with a 2,500 turnout and the ever thirsty Armada Sur, the service was slow and erratic. There is nothing worse than waiting to get a beer as people in front of you take ages to buy a packet of crisps. Anyway beers in hand we took our places on the terracing and tried to work out who was lining up in CD Tenerife’s snazzy new home strip. It was a mixed bag of returning players, new signings and youngsters that had been brought up for the pre season training camp over in La Palma.
CD Marino were poor, they have given us some tough games in the past but not this time, but for a first proper friendly it was pleasing to see CD Tenerife show some good signs. Nino has yet to sign a new contract extension but it’s looking more likely by the day that he will stay and it was good to see him in action again. Returning midfield player Hidalgo, back after a five year gap, opened the scoring after 10 minutes from a pass by Bertran, another key player looking close to committing his future to the cause. New signing Natalio set up Nino to make it 2-0 after 17 minutes and the play was flowing well. Iriome made a good start to his return from loan supplying Nino for a comfortable half time 3-0 lead. After some more scrumming down at the bar we were back for the second half as wholesale changes were made to the on pitch 11. Dani Kome came on and looked sharper than last season scoring a good goal cutting in from the left to round up the scoring after 75 minutes.
A good work out for the squad, and for our singing and drinking talents. There will be many tougher games than this but the new coach should be pleased with what he saw. Vamos El Tete.