Maximum tension in Tenerife: the collective effort seeks its place in the First Division

Maximum tension in the largest island of the Canary Islands.

Tenerife (947,900 inhabitants) is nervously and anxiously facing what may be the team's most important game so far in the 21st century.

CD Tenerife faces Girona this Sunday (8:00 p.m. local time) in a packed Heliodoro Rodríguez López in the final showdown of the season, which will determine which of the two teams wins the long-awaited final place in the First Division.

"Look, here there is no talk of anything else, neither on the street nor on WhatsApp," says Miguel Sánchez.

"On Sunday we will suffer."

The first leg in Montilivi left everything up in the air, despite the superiority of the peninsular team: 0-0.

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Suffering and sacrificing is precisely what Tete has done throughout the season.

"We are not an all-star team," the blue and white captain, Madrid-born Aitor Sanz (38 years old), says in a telephone conversation, who with more than 300 games played since 2013 has already become the seventh player with the most games played in the shirt in its nearly hundred-year history.

“We base ourselves on the collective effort, on competing each action to the maximum, on improving day by day in training.

We are a team dedicated to the community”.

This group is the one that has managed to get the team led by the Catalan Luis Miguel Ramis to settle for almost the entire season in promotion league positions.

And the one that made him go over the eternal rival, the Las Palmas Sports Union, in the previous round.

06/16/22 DVD 1111. Aitor Sanz, CD Tenerife player Photo: Miguel Velasco AlmendralMiguel Velasco Almendral

Tenerife has struggled for the second division since those glorious years in the nineties, in which, led by Valdano, they snatched leagues from Real Madrid and played in the semifinals of the extinct UEFA.

In its 96-year history, the blue and white team has played 13 seasons at the top.

His last participation in the category dates back to 2010. And after it, the descent into hell of Second B. Going up is not just a matter of reputation.

Entering the First Division involves, from the outset, an injection of close to 50 million euros, according to quick calculations by the entity's president, Miguel Concepción.

Girona midfielder Iván Martín (right) plays a ball against Alexandre Corredera, from Tenerife, during the first leg of the promotion final to LaLiga Santander played on June 11 at the Montilivi Stadium, in Girona.David Borrat (EFE )

And the business around the team, beyond the cloud of cafeterias that populate the surroundings of the stadium in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

"The tourist impact would be very positive, obviously," says the president of the Hotel and Non-Hotel Association of Santa Cruz Tenerife.

“It would be a boost for the Tenerife hotel industry.

The pity is that we can't have two representatives in the First Division, really”.

CD Tenerife and UD Las Palmas have only coincided one year at the top, during the 2001-02 season.

"Having an elite team does not only report to the city, but also to the island and even to the Canary Islands," Abbas Moujir, president of the Federation of Urban Areas of Tenerife (Fauca), recently told this newspaper.

“For the club it would be a very important jump.

And for the island: I've been here for so long that one soaks up what this game means, the importance of promotion.

Experiencing something like this with the club of my life is something unforgettable”.

In the memory of the fans is the disastrous 2017, when the team fell in the league against Getafe.

Also in that of Aitor Sanz, of course, who confesses to having lived that June the saddest day of his career.

"The team today is more competitive, more mature, and more convinced of achieving success than that time," says Aitor Sanz.

"Then we had more talented and younger players, but we found ourselves in the situation and we didn't quite believe it."

And he uses a manual: "This is football and it can happen, but the attitude and desire of the team are there".

That, and the fact that, for now, Girona has not managed to overcome any of the five previous occasions in which it was seen in a similar situation.

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