Pitchside with Pope: Deadlock
With a playoff spot within reach, El Perelló’s footballers had an important derby game at the weekend. Richard Pope reports.
Thankfully, the rain held off for the game as more than 300 supporters turned up for this match between El Perelló and L’Ametlla de Mar. This was probably the most important derby in recent years as, before the game, both were level on points and hopeful of gaining the one playoff spot available for promotion.
To reinforce the importance of the occasion, cameras from the television stations Canal 21 and Canal Terres de l’Ebre were both in attendance. In order to appease the avid Barça fans amongst the attendees the kick-off had been delayed until 7.15pm. As the Azulgranas had just completed a 5-0 drubbing in their own local derby against Espanyol, both sets of fans arrived in a jovial mood, no doubt hoping their own team could complete a similar “Goleada”.
However, nothing could have been further from the truth as, in an intriguing but goalless encounter, they cancelled each other out. L’Ametlla play a more aggressive style of football, competing for everything, playing long balls for their forwards to chase and shooting from distance at goal. Perelló, on the other hand, play a more refined, skilful style of football relying on a good first touch and inter-passing of the ball.
Eric Barbera’s header misses by a whisker
In the first half, the L’Ametlla defence was certainly under a far greater amount of pressure as Perelló mounted wave after wave of attack producing numerous corner kicks, but there were no attempts on goal that severely tested their goalkeeper. The nearest Perelló came to scoring was when, from a corner, Eric Barbera stole between the L’Ametlla defence to head the ball downwards towards the goal. Unfortunately, the angle was too steep and it bounced just over the crossbar.
L’Ametlla actually came closest to scoring when Jordi Llao broke down the left flank, shot from a narrow angle and forced a marvelous save from Marc Andreu, only for the ball to break to Oriol Nuñes whose shot struck the post; the ball was eventually cleared by the Perelló defence.
The second half was a more even affair with Marc called into action again to make a couple of smart saves, but neither keeper was severely tested. Both teams made valiant attempts to score but no-one could break the deadlock. With so much depending on the result, tempers were a little frayed at times as the tension built up, but the game was sensibly refereed by the flamboyant Carlos Garcia. The final whistle was a disappointment to both teams as the result was of no real benefit to either team.
The weekend’s results saw Flix, with their 2-0 victory over Ginestar, consolidated in second position with 58 points. Aldeana (Aldea) were beaten 4-3 by champions Batea and now have the same amount of points as El Perelló and L’Ametlla. These three are joined on 54 points by Santa Barbera who won 4-2 against Vilalba.
Next weekend sees L’Ametlla at home to Flix and, if they can pull off a victory, the situation could be thrown wide open again.
Perelló though have a difficult game themselves away to in-form La Senia who are only three points and one place below them. Kick off is at 6pm on Saturday 14 May.
The Canal 21 video is here, and the Canal Terres de l’Ebre video is here.
FINAL SCORE
CE El Perelló 0-0 L’Ametlla SCER
El Perelló’s handball team lost on Saturday in Sant Joan Despi by the narrowest of margins 21-19. However, all is not lost as a win in the last home group game could possibly send them through to the final phase of the playoffs if the other result is favourable. A tall ask but miracles do happen.
Leave a Reply