Trail of the Lion King

The third game of the day took us out of Murcia and an hour down the road to Eldense. We found a parking space that didn’t seem too far from the ground, but it was only when we got closer on foot that I realised that we’d parked near to the old Estadio Pepico Amat.

Fortunately, there were sufficient people milling around to give me a bit of confidence that the new Pepico Amat couldn’t be too far away. Sure enough, it was just around the corner, and after a lap of the ground trying to find our section, we eventually arrived at the temporary seating erected to increase the ground capacity from its original four thousand.

Four thousand seems somewhat unambitious for a team that’s now in the second-tier. They might have been better staying at the old Pepico. This game didn’t sell out, but maybe the five-hundred tickets sold over the old capacity made the building of the temporary stand worthwhile.

Our twenty-five euro seats near the top gave us an excellent view of the countryside beyond the ground, although with the sun in our eyes I was grateful when the it finally disappeared behind the hills. That was the signal for everyone to add a layer or zip up their coat.

Fifteenth place Mirandes took the lead on the half-hour. Or, more accurately, a couple of minutes later after the VAR got involved. I was surprised to see that they have it in the second-tier in Spain, although I was equally surprised that the game went ahead at all in an international week.

Anyway, a Mirandes striker looked to have had his shot saved on the line. He wheeled away doing a Jan Fjortoft airplane celebration whilst everyone else, including his team mates, played on without a murmur. Two minutes on, the ref paused, held his finger to his earpiece and awarded the goal.

Tenth placed Eldense had the crowd stamping a little too enthusiastically for my liking in a stand made of scaffolding with an injury time equaliser just before the break. They went ahead a couple of minutes after the restart and looked as if they would see the game out. They didn’t quite manage it though as a stooping header from a free-kick whipped in bang on ninety minutes secured a point for the visitors.

Tags: Eldense, Jan Fjortoft, Spanish football, VAR

This entry was posted on January 23, 2024 at 9:18 am and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.