Undeserved loss

It takes me ages to come to terms with losing especially when like this is was undeserved. They played really well and in one minute of unconcentrated play Zaragoza managed to score a goal. I am not the only person, everyone I have talked to says CD Tenerife played well and at least deserved to win. Zaragoza have spent lot of money on players, where as we have spent very little. We looked the better side.
Playing for us were:
Aragoneses, Marc Bertrán, Bellvís, Manolo Martínez, Luna, Ricardo, Román (Omar, 62), Alfaro (Ángel, 80) Kome (Saizar, 86), Richi & Nino.

Playing for Zaragoza were:
Carrizo, Ayala, Pablo Amo, Jorge López, Uche (Obradovic, 88’), Pennant (Ander Herrera, 70’), Gabi, Aguilar (Babic, 70’), Arizmendi, Ponzio & Laguardia.
Yellow cards were given to Arizmendi for Zaragoza and for us to Luna, Román, Bellvís, Manolo Martínez y Nino.

The start of the game had both sides playing very carefully watching to see how the other was going to play. Both seemed more preoccupied with not letting a goal in than actually scoring the first gol. Slowily Tenerife started to move towards the 3/4 line with the aim to score.

In the 4th minute Jermain Pennant ex Liverpool player had a shot towards the gola but Arizmendi failed to convert it into a goal and the ball went out. In the next play Tenerife counterattatcked and Alfaro shot with the ball hitting the post.

shortly after the 30 minute mark Tenerife had a clear shots at goal, first with Richi shooting a header and secondly Nino with a ferocious shot at the Zaragoza goal.

Again and again Tenerife took the ball all the way to the local teams area playing with precision and courage. Just before half time Tenerife players Alfaro and Nino missed great possible shots at goal leaving the half time score 0-0.

The first part of the second half the ball moved from one end to the other in a constant rhythm of up and down. The teams both knowing the importance of starting the league with points. They chased the ball without stopping in a constant stream of energy. Uche and Kome were always in the action and created chances where they played. Inspite of the fact Tenerife played well Zaragoza's goal came in the minute. From a play by Herrera who had just come onto the field ending up at the feet of Arizmendi who scored.

The last few minutes of the game both sets of players were tired and you could see the mistakes. there were fewer sequences of passes and the game was more choppy. It ended in a win for Zaragoza which gives them their first three points.

The Table looks interesting with Athletico Madrid who are actually playing in the Champions league last ( 1 game missing). Tenerife is 16th with no chance of being in the last 3 positions this week.

The team have also announced that they now have 14.050 season ticket holders. I would expect the figure to start to rise after Tuesday when many holders get paid.

Line up for tonights game

Here is the list of the players who went to Zaragoza. These 18 players are the ones Jose Luis Oltra will decide form who will play tonight.

Keepers: Luis García & Sergio Aragoneses.
Defense: Bellvís, Marc Bertrán, Ezequiel Luna, Manolo Martínez & Pablo Sicilia.
Midfielders: Alejandro Alfaro, Míkel Alonso, Ayoze, Kome, Román Martínez, Omar Ramos, Ricardo & Richi.
Forwards: Ángel, Nino & Gaizka Saizar.

Omar our latest sigining even if it was only from Tenerife B is travellng with the team and I wish him luck even if he doesn't get to play. we wihs them all the best and hope for a win.
After the game CD Tenerife have 2 weeks to refine their game as next weekend is an international weekend and the only one of our players who has been called up is Kome.

Alfaro arrives amid the adulation of the fans

There was talk on a couple of the fan sites about who was going to meet Alfaro when he arrived back in Tenerife on Wednesday. The numbers went up and up unitl there were over 200 people in the airport to meet him.
Below is a video clip from one of the fan clubs:


The fans have had a helter skelter couple of weeks. There has been the despair of having the feeling we didn't have a good enough team to the euphoria of the last couple of days knowing that Alfaro and Dinei were coming. The talk of Marc Bertran going will I think just end up as talk as he has been made captain so I can't see the club letting him go easily.

José Luis González González the reeree for our first game has just been promoted to referee the first division. Up to now he has refed in the second division.

Advantages of being in the first division.

Kome has been called up by Camaroon to play in their match against Gabon on the . He will be gone from the 5th and the 9th of September. In previous years we have suffered when International players such as Kome or previously Frankowski had needed to be with their national teams for games. The second division has never stopped for international weeks but the first division does.
We will then not be missing our great player any more.

Juanlu is still injured and is not expected to play on Saturday. He is still doing physiotherapy and it is hoped he will be fit for the second game.

Ticket prices are now up on the club website and are as follows.
Tribuna - 65 euros
S.Sebastain - 45 euros
Herradura - 35 euros
Popular - 20 euros
If the wesite is to be belived there will be no cheap seats for children this year.
Below is a plan of the stadium so you can see where the seats are.


For those season ticket holders who want to change seats this will be possible after the first home game at a date that hasn't been specified yet.

2 great signings.

The President announced at lunch time that the club has arranged for Alfaro to come back on loan for another year and for Dinei to come on loan as well. Alfaro will aparently be arriving at 3pm tomorrow afternoon and there is a list on the Spanish site Twente and on the Zonablanquiazul.com forum of the fans who are going to greet him. His coming back had been rumoured for a few days and on his own website yesterday he talks of going from Sevilla and that Tenerife would be his first choice of home for this year. He is a great addition to the team and we were sad to see him go at the end of last season and are happy to welcome him back this year.
Dinei (Telmario de Araujo) is coming for a year on loan in Celta de Vigo and although he is injured he was operated on in the first week of July and his recuperation was expected to take 10 weeks which brings us to the middle of September. He still needs to pass his medical when he gets to the Island. Celta have apparently not paid him or the club he comes from for last year.
These signings are great news with the start of the season only days away. Today's player interviews were with Eziquiel Luna and Gaizka Saizar. Luna talked about the league start and how the team are ready to play their very best and that they are even more united than last year. That they were gloing to Zaragoza to look for 3 points. Saizar commented that Zaragoza like Tenerife were a newly ascended team and as such he expected the game to be similar to the one last season.

First round game on La Sexta.

It was announced on the Zoneros website on Friday that the first game of the season, Zaragoza against Tenerife will be shown live on Saurday night at 9pm on La Sexta, an open Spanish Channel. This is a great start the the season and I am looking forward to it.
The club president stated last week that it had been impossible to organise a charter for this game so a lot of fans will not be going. The next away game is the Mallorca game which for many the flight will be too expensive but the 5th round is the Real Madrid game which is being sold by several travel agents, also as it is a cheap and easy flight a lot of people will be going on their own as well. Another easy game is the Valladolid game which you can take a flight to Madrid and drive or take the bus to Valladolid. We are going to the Real game and the Valladolid game and will keep looking for cheap flights for other games as they come up.

The club have now announced they have 13,200 season ticket holders, which is a record ammount of season tickets sold for CD Tenerife. I am sure they will get to the 17,000 they claim or as near to it as possible. Renewing season ticket holders have until the weekend of the first home game to pay for their renewal and this leaves another pay day before then. I am sure once the 1st-5th come we will see a scurry of renewals bring us up to the magic 17,000.

2-0 win against NEC NIJMEGEN

The first half of the game was dominated by Tenerife. They showed great ball skills and play between the players. Manolo Martinez was the first to shot at goal after 5 mins with a long shot.
In the 14th minute Nino scored the first goal
Even at 1-0 ahead the team didn't stop fighting and nearly scored a second with a shot at goal by Saizar in the 19th minute. The Dutch team had their first chance in the 33 minute but this was saved by Sergio Aragoneses. The 41st minute saw a possible penalty (there was no possible from my point of view but it wasn't called) against Nino by Radomski. CD Tenerife maintained all their skills in the second half and dominated the game. The first shot in the second half came for a pass by Saizar to Kome which just went outside the post. In the 54th minute Belvis stole the ball form NEC and passed it to Roman Martinez who converted this into a second goal. The new played managed to give the team more peace of mind and a win to finish the pre-season.

CD TENERIFE
Sergio Aragoneses; Marc Bertrán, Ezequiel Luna, Manolo Martínez, Bellvís (Pablo Sicilia, 71’); Ricardo, Román Martínez, Gaizka Saizar (Omar, 62’), Kome (Ayoze, 71’); Richi (Míkel Alonso, 86’) y Nino (Ángel, 86’).

NEC NIJMEGEN
Babos; Burzgzorg, Van Eijden (Wellenberg, 46’), Zomer, El-Akchaoui; Radomski (Kivuvu, 46’), Schöne, Davids; Fejzullahu, El Kabir (Worm, 62’) y Van Beukering (Ten Voorde, 62’)

Yellow cards for:

Home team -Nino; visitors - El Kabir.

GOALS
1-0: (14‘) Nino. 2-0: (54‘) Román Martínez.

MATCH COMMENTS
The match was played in the Heliodoro Rodríguez López. The grass was in perfect condition. There were 3.817 spectators. It was a warm night.The game was the second Trofeo Ciudad de Santa Cruz. Nino received the best player prize.

It was a good night, the players played well and the fans who were there had a good time. There were shouts from the the singing area against the president and the management team. The stadium had trouble selling the seats it had as they held back all the season ticket holders seats so the fans who came had trouble to get seats in the stadium. I understand the logic of holding their seats but it was a shame. I had wanted to sit with the Armada Sur fans who were there but was told that stand was full. You can see from the video it wasn't but I understand the logic behind the ticket sellers statement. The photo above is from the singing stand and if you know any of the Armada Sur fans you might be able to pick some of them out.

New shirts and the team

The new Tenerife strips for this season were shown yesterday in the Stadium. There is little variation. Probably the biggest changes are on the third strip as the neck seems to have changed and the stripe down the side is new. The Blue shirt still has the blue cross which has been very sucessful but this year the patterened part of it is the bottom not the top as it was 2 years ago. I like the new logo which I hadn't noticed until I noticed a post about it on the Armada Sur website



The team as it stands at the moment
1 Luis A.A.
2 Marc B.
3 Héctor S.
4 C. Bellvís
5 M. Martínez
6 P. Sicilia
7 Nino
8 Ricardo L.
9 Ángel
10 Ayoze
11 G. Saizar
12 -
13 Aragoneses
14 Kome
15 Román
16 -
17 Juanlu Hens
18 -
19 Luna
20 Richi
21 -
22 -
23 Mikel
24 Culebras
25 -
26 Aitor N.

5-0 win for Tenerife

CD tenerife won 5 - 0 last night in a great game. I got lost in La Laguna and missed the first 20 mins and the first 2 goals. I arrived just in time to see the third goal by Omar. Angel scored the other 4 giving five in total. The team looked great and although it was against a 3rd division team the play was much more cohesive than the players looked against Marion. The last game I actually saw.
Armada Sur had a group of fans there who I joined and there were about 1500 fans in total The man of the match trophy was given to Angel and there were trophies for both teams.


Players

CD TENERIFE
Luis García; Aitor Núñez, Pablo Sicilia, Ezequiel Luna, Héctor; Alexis, Mikel Alonso, Ayoze, Omar Ramos; Gaizka Saizar y Ángel. También jugaron Carlos Bellvís y Rubén Rosquete.

UD LANZAROTE
Floro; Yona, Ángel Gil, Kámara, Santi Torres; Vladimir, Ayoze Pérez, Jotha, Toñito; Echedey y José Manuel. También jugaron Miguel Yúnes, Maikel Padrón y Miguel.

Goals scored
1-0: (1’) Ángel. 2-0: (17’) Ángel. 3-0: (28’) Omar Ramos. 4-0: (58’) Ángel. 5-0: (77’) Ángel.


The new strips will be presented on Friday (tomorrow) and will go on sale in the club shop straight after. I hope they will be on sale on the stands outside the stadium Saturday night.

Presentation game

I am cross today, the club has always gifted the presentation game to season ticket holders but this year they have decided that everyone should pay 10 euros for their seats. The money will apparently go to the people who lost their homes in La Palma. I do not begrudge them the money and if asked would happily have put my hand in my pocket for the same amount or more. The club will not sell your seat to someone else so by the sound of it a lot of seats will be empty. On the Zoneros forum there are an lot of people who either because they don't have the money or because they don't think it is right are not going on Saturday for the game. It is a shame for the players. This is their opening game at home even if this one counts for nothing as this is still pre-season. It would have been great to have the stadium filled.

Still there you go, The stadium repairs are still going slowly and it seems clear there will be no presidents and VIP area for the first home game and a few more if the photo on the club website is anything to go by.
I don't begrudge the club my time or my money but there are moments when I could sit in a corner and cry. You all know I waited 17 hours for our season tickets. My other half's club Rapid Vienna are really good with their fans. They are playing Europe league qualifiers this week. When they announced the date of sale they offered the seats to their season ticket holders and after that had 2000 seats left. They then offered half these seats online and for the folk who had had no internet they offered 2000 tickets through their box office. The night before the sale people started queuing at about 4am, at 8am the club sent an official to count them and at 2000 they left an official there and sent the rest of the people home. It bought back the waiting in June and the hope late in the afternoon that if we just got through the stadium doors then we would get our season tickets the same night as the club wouldn't force us to leave.
I think that day/night is one of the things that will be talked about in the history of the club for a long time. That and the 2 memories I have from last season that must be in everyone's heart. The game in Girona which I would have loved to have gone to but instead got to celebrate in The main Santa Cruz Square then the teams coming back to the city and the Jerez game where the players performed miracles and the fans as you can see in this video. It is towards the end and from Tribuna even look at them jump. These seats were full on people from the south who had waited hours and hours for tickets on 2 separate days. The atmosphere was outstanding and singing could be heard from all around the stadium. One of the reasons we have seats near the goal is so we can be near the Popular end. It was either that or above the Zoneros corner as although we are getting older I need to be near the noise.

New week - new games

19/08/2009	20:00	Francisco Peraza (La Laguna) II Trofeo Vivir en positivo	CD Tenerife-UD Lanzarote	-
22/08/2009	21:00	Heliodoro Rodríguez López II Trofeo Ciudad de Santa Cruz	CD Tenerife-NEC Nijmegen	-

These are the two games left for the pre-season. The second game is in our home stadium and I was wondering if the season ticket holders had it included in their season ticket. So I phoned the club this morning and was informed I need to phone back on Wednesday as a decision hasn't been made yet.

Jose Luis Oltra said of Saturdays game thatthe team had more continuity and were more accurate when it came to passing the ball. That he had a good feeling about the way they played that the team was more like the one tht played last year. He was happy with the way the defence worked and the way the forwards attacked and the game as a whole was good. He felt the training in La Manga had given them the best chance for the start in Zaragoza.

Juanlu Hens has a sprained ankle and is expected to be out of the game for at least 2 weeks. This makes him a question for the game in Zaragoza which is the first game in the League. He has no substitute so it will be interesting to see who replaces him on Wednesday.

This weeks training include

Day	Time	Place	Activity
Monday	10:00	CIAT	Training
Tuesday	10:00	CIAT	Training
Tuesday	18:00	CIAT	Training
Wesdnesday	10:00	CIAT	Training
Wesdnesday	20:00	Francisco Peraza	CD Tenerife-UD Lanzarote (II Trofeo Vivir en Positivo)
Thursday	10:00	CIAT	Training
Friday	10:00	HRL	Training
Saturday	10:00	CIAT	Training
Saturday	21:00	HRL	CD Tenerife-NEC (II Trofeo Ciudad de Santa Cruz)
Sunday	-	-	Rest day

.

Real betis vs CD Tenerife

Tenerife won 0-2 tonight in a game against Real Betis. The goals were scored by Juanlu Hens in the first half and Nino in the second. The team played in a much more oranised fashion. The bad news is that Juanlu was injured in the second half and we will need to wait and see how bad the injury is. Oltra stated after the game he was still pleased how the team was evolving and that overall inspite of the 2 losses earlier in the week the time spent in La Manga had been good.
Playing were

REAL BETIS
Goitia; Damiá, Carlos García, Nano, Fernando Vega; Iriney, Arzu, Juanma, Sergio García; Caffa y Pavone. Substituted Adrián, Sunny, Ondonkor, Ilic, Emaná, Rodri, Rivas, Toni, Melli, Xisco, Juande y Cañas.

CD TENERIFE
Sergio Aragoneses; Marc Bertrán, Carlos Bellvís, Manolo Martínez, Ezequiel Luna; Ricardo, Román Martínez, Juanlu Hens, Kome; Richi y Nino. Also played Pablo Sicilia, Omar Ramos, Saizar, Ángel y Mikel Alonso.

The game was played in La Manga Club where the team have been staying all week. The weather was clear and fine. There were no cards given.

Comments on the zonablanquiazul.com forum presume this is the team that trainer Jose Luis Oltra is planning to play when the season starts if no more new players are signed.


The nest game is on Wednesday in La Laguna at 20.00 against UD Lanzarote.

Training before the Cartagena game

Here is a photo from the club where you can see the players training today before they play Cartagena tonight. They are training in the La Manga Club which has great sports facilities.
The game is at 8pm tonight in the Cartagonova stadium in Cartagena.
The palyers warmed up and then they moved the ball between them and practiced shots at goal. Hopefully we will have a few goals tonight.Then they stretched and went back to the hotel. Only Culebras was in the Gym.

The moving season ticket sales table is in la Palma today where people can renew their season ticket.

The good thing about pre-season is there are no points in play.

The good thing about pre-season is there are no points in play stated Nino on Sunday evening. The chance to try different things and to come into form with out the stress of every game counts. That said he followed up hoping they win the three games this week to give them confidence.

That was not to be at least for the first game in the Copa Puma against Elche. Tenerife lost 4-1 with goals from (41’) Santos, (47’) Saúl,(68’) Omar Ramos, (85’) Javi Lara and (89’) Perera. Although they played well especially in the first half the shots at goal were just that shots. There were about 3000 spectators there to watch the game even though it was raining.

On the plus side the club has announced they now have 11,000 paid season ticket holders for the coming season. As renewing season ticket holders have until the weekend of the first round to renew this seems a very positive sign. The club seems sure they will sell all 17,000 seats they have allocated for season tickets.

The club has edited a DVD of the highlights of last season which will go on sale for the 30th of August costing 2 euros with the purchase of any of the following newspapers. El Dia, Diario de Avisos or LA Opinion de Tenerife. The DVD will last approximately 1 hour

Lost to Real Sociedad

The game was in La Orotava in the North of the Island. I have hoped to go but it didn't work out that way. By all accounts the team played their best but still need time to come together as a team. Jose Luis Oltra stated after the game, "This was a preseason game we were not good but that is all it is not important. There are things to correct and a lot of our players are still out of shape. Real Sociedad played very seriously and we were unlucky with our chances."
The players are now in La Manga training and tonight they play against Elche CF this is not on the television but is being commentated by Cadena Sur if you want to listen to it on the radio in Spanish.

Tomorrow's game against Real Sociedad in the final of the Teide Trophy

After 2 training sessions yesterday (Friday) the team is preparing for tomorrows game against Real Sociedad at 8.30 pm in Estadio Los Cuartos in La Orotava. This is the final of the Trofeo Teide being played. This is by far their most difficult match so far. Real Sociedad are a Basque team in the second division and were in Primera until 2 seasons ago.
The team started training at 10 am and worked in groups of 3. The session was 80 minutes long and they practiced shots at goal. There will be another session tomorrow morning before the game an on Monday they are off to Murcia for their next leg of summer training.

Armada Sur membership & video from the marino game

Wednesday night before and after the Marino game the Armadad Sur fan club held their membership party in the Royal Oak 2 pub near the Marion Stadium. There members could pick up their membership card and this years T-Shirt.
Below are photos of the card and Chris the Club's president with this years T-shirt.

It is a great shirt with their name, the club's name and logo and the fan club's logo on the front and the dates of this years fixtures on the back. They are also selling the T-shirt on its own and if you want one you can contact Chris at www.armadasur.com

I also found this great video clip from the game on you tube. It was put up by the Zona Blanquiazul website for the Zoneros another fan club.

Román Martínez arriving today

Román Martínez an Español player will be arriving in Tenerife today to join CD Tenerife for this year on loan. There is apparently no clause in his contract to buy him if things go well as Español want him back at the end of the Season.
The midfield player played 32 games last season and scored 5 goals for Español. He will take his medical in the Clinica Parque this afternoon and join training tomorrow.

Kome has been called up to play for Cameroon on the 12th of August for a game in Austria. He talked about how happy he was that he managed to get through the first part of summer training without an injury unlike last year. He commented that he had been training on the left , the right and in the centre so he wasn't sure where he would be playing this year but confirmed he would play where the Mister put him.

This week there will be 8 training sessions the double training sessions being on Tuesday and Friday. This weeks friendly games are on Wednesday night against C D Marino and on Sunday against Real Sociedad in the north of the Island.

Yesterdays game against Santa Cruz de la Palma was cancelled as the fire on the Island of La Palma made it seem safer to do so.

The under-18's lost in the final of the Villa de Adeje Cup against Liverpool. The result was 3-0 to Liverpool. The competition was held in the Tenerife Top Training Centre, An awesome sports centre for athletes to train in. This year Manchester City visited for their winter training session and I am sure we will see more tams this winter as the new centre gets more well known.

First win of the season

Sorry if you were planning to warch the game tonight but I couldn't resist looking at yesterday result. A 0-3 win against Tenisca was a great start to summer training. Mikel Alonso scored the first goal and Nino the other 2. Jose Luis Oltra was pleased with the way they played and the result. Luna stated he still has a way to go with his phyisical fitness but he was pleased to play again. As he only started training on Thursday I guess it was not a surprise he was tired after the game.

It looks like Mikel Alonso's brother Xazi will be coming back to Spain so it will be interesting to watch them play against each other.
Gaizka Saizar is recovering form his injury and is expected to play again in 2 weeks.

There is still talk about N'Gal coming but Nástic have been aproached by various first division teams for him to play so we will need to wait and see. There is talk in the AS today about Román Martinez from Español being available on loan for next year. He stated he hoped he could come to Tenerife as he had been offered the chance to play on a regular basis.

Tenerife B should know in the next few days if they have a chance to play in Segunda B as the ecconomic situation of some of the other clubs should either be resolved or show up as impossible. One of the Gran Canaria teams is desperately looking for a loan to cover their debts as they couldn't raise the finance neede any other way.