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.