Santa Tecla v Fuertes AguijaresFinally unearthed the location of Las Delicias (pictured), the home ground of Santa Tecla FC, its about 30-40 min walk from my house, or about 10 mins by bus. It’s a nice walk right through the centre of Santa Tecla through the busy market area and out the other side.
And a nice little ground it is, with just one stand and trees all around the other three sides. The first game of the season brought a good crowd and a very pleasant atmosphere within. Quite a good ground with a real mix, many in Santa Tecla replica shirts and T-shirts – not sure where they have obtained these. The team wears the unusual combination of a shock-green shirt and navy blue shorts.
Two things became obvious almost immediately: - firstly the players were still rusty from the off-season and secondly Santa Tecla were clearly on top. The fact they simply couldn’t bag dawned more slowly.
The pitch is not in top condition, and so the intricate moves in the middle of the park rarely came off, but Santa Tecla showed determination, both in looking for the result and in looking to play football.
Unfortunately I cannot yet name most of the players, but the right back (No. 5) and the midfielder (No 15) are certainly players I will be watching, even if the full back seemed to push on too much. Fellow Group “A” team Curazo decided over the winter to have only El Salvadorian players so Santa Tecla picked up Columbian John Castillo off them. Big and strong his first touch was lacking and showed a marked lack of understanding with his team mates, this will need to improve if they are to realize their dream of promotion.
The National Team
The National Team has arranged three friendlies before the home leg of the World Cup Qualifier First Round v Anguilla, and they have a tight schedule:-
21st January - travel to Belize
22nd January - 11am friendly v Belize in San Ignacio (near Belmopan), and return to El Salvador the same day at 5pm
23th January - The squad splits into two groups, the 12 with US visa travel to Haiti via Miami and arrive the same day, the other 8 via Costa Rica and Cuba with an overnight stay in La Habana
24th January - The squad reunites
26th January - Friendly v Haiti
29th January - Friendly v Haiti
30th January - The return trip is as the outward one, with the two groups one arriving the same day and...
31st January - The second groups arrives back today
6th February - CONCACAF WCQ Rnd 1, 1st Leg v Anguilla, Estadio Cuscatlan.
10th February - Clausura 2008 starts.
Thats 8 planes and 3 games in 10 days, with a week off before the big game, not ideal at all I would say.
Once again Alianza have been difficult in releasing their players. They argue that it is because they have to protect them more, as they still cannot contract new players, owing to a FIFA sanction. They stated that the players could travel to Belize, but not Haiti. National team manager Carlos de Cobos said, correctly in my view, that all teams should be treated equally, and will not take the Alianza players (José Orlando Martinez, Jonathon Barrios and Francisco Álvarez) to Belize, and will further be excluded from the official match on the 6th of February. Thus this is the 17 travelling today to Belmopan:-
Firpo – Juan José Gómez & Manuel Salazar
FAS – Alfredo Pacheco, Marvin González, Óscar Jiménez & Ramón Flores
Águila – Luis Hernandez, Rolando Torres, Rudis Corrales, Shawn Martin & William Torres
Vista Hermosa – William Romero & Salvador Coreas
Nejapa – Miguel Montes
Chalatenango – Ramón Sánchez
Real Maryland (USA) – Ronald Cerritos & Dennis Alas
For the Haiti games the 3 Álianistas will be replaced by Alex Campos (Águila), Selvin Zapeda (San Salvador) and Emerson Umaña. Eliseo Quintanilla will not be traveling for the friendlies as the Costa Rican league has just kicked off. In his debut for Alajuelense he had a decent game, but looked a little off the pace of Costa Rican football and not quite in tune with his colleagues yet. The game vs Santos de Guápiles ended one each. He will be available for the WCQ game.
As Webster Park in Anguilla is unsuitable (still) for international football the federation are planning to play the away leg in Washington DC, where there is a small Anguillan community resides. They are keen to avoid what happened in the 2006 qualifiers, where they had to play both legs in Santa Domigo. They only World Cup Qualifier played there was in 2000 when they lost to The Bahamas 3-1. This fixture will be the first time ever that Anguilla have played against a non-Caribbean nation.
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7 comments:
The logistics for the amistoso schedule is laughable. One would think the Salvadoran FA employs people to attend to these issues. Santa Tecla's ground looks quite bucolic, but Las Delicias? Hardly a name that'll strike fear into opponents.
Ok DT. First of all, what is a tress ? For some reason I thought it was to do with hair. Not that you would know much about that. Anyway, running tracks around the stadia are a big scourge on football I feel.
As for Santa Tecla, does that mean the Saint of Keyboard parts of something ?
Finally, strange colours, green and blue on the same strip. Especially for anyone brought up on the West coast of Scotland. Any chance of pictures sometime ?
Thanks again anon and Black.
Funny you should say "bucolic" there was a real village fete feel about the whole thing.
"Tress" has now been corrected, thank you. I need a new prof-ruder I think. And thank you for the highly amusing lack-of-hair gag - it happens to the presenter on the-other-footy-pod that we don't mention, so i will have to put up with it.
We all know you like to pretend you have no Spanish ("Igual") but you have given yourself away again. Santa Tecla would indeed be Saint Key [as in on a keyboard, not to open a door] in English. Maybe it is for this that the town is also called Nueva San Salvador [New Holy Saviour]
I think it is usual to not translate place names for this very reason? Any Catholics out there who know who/what Santa Tecla is/was?
Very thoroughly enjoyed the most recent podcast. Kevin Keegan's singing is shocking. You're certainly not going to make any friends with any Chivas you may come across.
Listened to the podcast. Have made my opinions clear but a good first effort. Look forward to hearing you "broaden" your interests.....
And I don't mean anything rude.
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