Ebre Sports: Encouraging pre-season games for Handbol Perelló

Richard Pope reports on last weekend’s handball and football matches. The handball teams did well, but El Perelló’s main team of footballers were disappointing.

Handball update

Handbol Perelló had a busy weekend of pre-season matches with both the infantil and the senior teams in action.

On Saturday the senior team were involved in a triangular competition at Benicarló playing against two teams from the Castellón province, Benicarló and Onda. Perelló had little difficulty in dispatching the opposition and ran out the convincing winners. In their first game they were under very little pressure and cruised to a low-scoring victory over Onda, 18-9.

In the second game Benicarló were even less of a threat and were soundly beaten 30-12.

Handbol Perelló’s teams for 2015/16: prebenjamí, benjamí, infantil and sènior

Sunday saw two games played in the Perelló sports pavilion. First up were the infantil team whose opponents were  Amposta and a difficult game was expected. However, this was not the case and Perelló won comfortably 19-9.

Perelló v Benicarló

The second match saw the senior team facing Tarragona and this proved to be an entertaining encounter. Several of the regular first team players were rested and those on the court took some time to settle into their rhythm. The first ten minutes were full of mistakes and Tarragona soon established a six-point lead. Things looked ominous but the Perelló play gradually became more disciplined and by half time the deficit was only three.

The home team were dominant in the second half and, with 30 seconds remaining, looked as though they would win by the narrowest of margins, but a last-gasp goal from Tarragona gave them a deserved draw: 23-23.

Football round-up

The Perelló football team had an abysmal afternoon in Mora d’Ebre. In the 27th minute, Mora were down to ten men when their goalkeeper received a straight red card. This gave the visitors an opportunity to drive home the numerical advantage that they had over their newly promoted hosts.

However, instead of doing that, after a goalless first half, they managed to concede three goals in the second period without reply and I expect they returned to El Perelló wondering how they had thrown away such a golden opportunity.

L’Ampolla were the most successful of our local teams last weekend with a comfortable 3-0 win over Roquetenc, a result that lifts them into fifth position.

A 0-0 draw in Vilalba gave L’Ametlla their first point of the season and raises them off the bottom of the table. This season L’Ametlla have enough players on their books to form a B team that plays in the Quarta Catalan group 20. Most of the teams involved in the fourth division leagues consist of B teams, sides from small villages and barrios, and even school teams, L’Ametlla B drew 1-1 in Tivenys last weekend, putting them in mid-table after three games.

On Saturday morning I did manage to watch a pre-season football match between Perelló Infantils and Aldea for all of five minutes. In that brief period Perelló scored two goals, the second of which was excellently set up and executed. One of the Perelló midfield players received  the ball deep in his own half and put through a beautifully weighted pass to the centre forward who calmly advanced with the ball and then slotted it beyond the goalkeeper’s reach.

The entrenador Oriol Cid, a member of the first team squad, told me that they eventually won 6-0 and that the team try to play an attractive, attacking game.

football handball