For the history. Delirium, ecstasy, an unprecedented explosion of joy and emotion, a lot of emotion in a new blue and white derby. Tenerife rewarded their fans with an unforgettable win against their eternal rival in a Heliodoro Rodríguez López who will never forget what happened yesterday, forever and ever.
The visiting fans, displaced with the illusion of being able to see a triumph of their own in a fiefdom that was cursed again, did not know that what they were going to experience in the blue and white coliseum was going to be a true wake. And it was Enric Gallego, once again, the one who commissioned the yellow funeral with two goals.
The first of the Catalan’s goals was the fastest goal in the history of Canarian derbies. A great goal, magnificently billed, in just 15 seconds of commitment. The one who was late missed it… and the second one too. Five minutes later Gallego broke all the yellow schemes with a dry, low shot under the legs of Álvaro Vallés… and then the real party began, the one that Jonathan Viera saw at the end of the first leg of the tie for the promotion of the course past.
Tenerife had started plugged in, effervescent, boiling, contrasting with the reception that the players received upon arrival at the stadium, very cold, incomparable to that of the play-off, possibly due to the security device and the layout of the fences that they separated the players from their fans.
In the stands it was something else and the yellows, with a few troops scattered throughout different locations in Heliodoro, found themselves outmatched because, as the mosaic of the Grada Popular said “Your Value Does Not Know Rival”.
Among the locals almost no one was missing. I was up to Super Mario. He no longer climbs the fences of General de Pie nor does he wear that brand new mustache. He relies on a crutch, but he continues to live football like anyone else and feeling CD Tenerife to the rhythm of his heartbeat. Yesterday he enjoyed a historic match after so many times he stepped on the Heliodoro. He deserved it and Cantudo deserved it, a historic blue and white player who recently passed away and who paid a solemn tribute with a minute, well, more like half a minute, of silence.
Ramis arranged an alignment on the field with eight players who knew first hand what it was like to play a Canarian derby. García Pimienta put in his starting team the magical trident Viera, Pejiño and Moleiro and Loren, to whom another banner could well have been dedicated that read “Loren, we are still waiting for you.”
The Sevillian did not even find out where he was. When he realized it had been changed. But it is that his companions are not that they were very fine either. The yellow defenders got shaky. It was Enric Gallego’s fault and the intensity that the locals put into it, a thousand times greater than that of the visitors, completely the opposite of what happened in the first leg.
Gallego sowed unhappiness in those in yellow, in the players, in the supporters and also the workers of Segurmáximo, the company in charge of ensuring security inside the stadium, who could not leave their job, not even divert their eyes a little , to see what was happening on the field of play. They were in the story, but they didn’t see it.
The stands where the visiting supporters were had stopped moving, the press box where the journalist who invents the words of the players from Gran Canaria in the headlines to say what he would love them to say was located, was a tomb. And the third was still to come, which could have been materialized a little earlier, but saw the light when it could do the most damage, in the discount of the first half.
“Referee, whistle now so that these people have time to change the ticket and leave on the next boat”, said a blue and white fan from a stand where memes, comics and meetings began to come true to punish, always from humor, the eternal rival. Opposite, the yellow sector, was a cemetery with García Pimienta, in true The Observer style, more aware of the rackets of Álex Suárez and Ramis than of the cuerada that was falling to his people.
The only thing that had been seen of Jonathan Viera was those green loafers that he wears for big occasions and that have given him very little luck when he has had to face CD Tenerife in recent times. “If we send him another, we’ll ensure the goal average”, was heard between laughs, those that go through neighborhoods and that yesterday came out of the blue and white mouths without brake.
Pepper’s fever was small. She left three of her own in the dugout at halftime, including his two starting midfielders. They had been incapable of prevailing in duels, of getting ahead of the plays and of releasing a ball that at no time could they handle comfortably.
Actually they were not the only ones who were not comfortable on the field. So was Viera, much more Pejiño and the most uncomfortable was Moleiro, who tried as and when he could without any kind of success and was whistled massively by the local parish when his coach replaced him midway through the second half.
And Juan Soriano, to all these, living the most placid game in memory this season. The blue and white goalkeeper barely had to intervene because the first shot from Gran Canaria inside and outside the three sticks was from Loren after 22 minutes and the second could well have been the goal from Álvaro Jiménez, already in the final stretch.
It was somewhat that the winger embellished with a confrontation with several local footballers to remain brave in front of his fans, a typical popular gesture and tribune that immediately came against him when Nacho, from the fateful spot, converted the fourth goal after a very clear penalty about Garcés that the referee did not whistle first. The VAR, this time, did not take anything away from Ramis’ men.
With the final whistle came the jubilation for the locals and the visitors’ request for forgiveness towards the people who had accompanied them at the burial. Jonathan Viera saw a lot of partying again at the Heliodoro Rodríguez López. It was not for less, a 4-1 for history.
