to the expressive David Vidal, genius and figure of the benches and who directed the new owner of the blue booth, the nickname corresponds to him. “Let ‘Admiral’ Cervera work,” he said yesterday in LA NUEVA ESPAÑA, referring to the ship that belonged to the Spanish Navy and was named after Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete. And in the hands of the Admiral remains an Oviedo that entered the championship with all the guarantees of coming to fruition and that, however, soon lost its way. Now, it is about weathering the storm and returning to calm waters before setting more ambitious goals.
Álvaro Cervera is the biggest claim in tonight’s duel, 9:00 p.m., at the Carlos Tartiere that brings together Oviedo and Málaga, the ones that have made the most merit in this first quarter of the championship to be considered the “disappointment team of the year”. Both, blue and Andalusian, wore in the summer the band of serious aspirants to the highest levels, but they did not take long to show that reality was far from summer dreams.
Things have gone so badly for them that both teams know what a replacement on the bench is at this point. Mel succeeded Guede five days ago, although without much effect: only one win, last week against Lugo, in the five matches he has led. Now he has to do the same for Cervera.
The Spaniard will not have it easy in his act of baptism in the Tartiere. To the league situation is added the plague of casualties that conditions the work from the first day. Considerable obstacles for the coach’s attempt to reverse the trend seen in recent years, which indicates that the changes on the bench are not accompanied by a victory.
Since 2015, when the team returned to professional football, only Sergio Egea knows what it’s like to debut with a gift of three points. Egea (which in 2014 had already made its debut in Segunda B with a 3-1 win against Sporting B), achieved a revitalizing victory in Almería in 2019, 0-1, thanks to a goal from Tejera.
That was an oasis in the desert of new coaches in the last stage of Oviedo in professional football. None of the rest of the protagonists managed a three-point step to start their march on the blue bench. David Generelo, who succeeded Egea after his resignation, failed 1-0 in Santo Domingo on the day that all the spotlights were pointed at him.
Fernando Hierro also had no luck in Valladolid with a 1-0 that crushed the first day of Malaga in the Carbayona office. Not even Anquela’s experience served to change the dynamic. The Jaen native saw from the Tartiere wing the 2-3 with which Rayo Vallecano truncated its staging at the beginning of 2017/18.
After the parenthesis of Egea, Oviedo lived a busy year in 19/20. Rozada succeeded Egea on matchday six and drew against Extremadura, 1-1, on their first day. Ziganda was chosen in the final stretch to save the team, but his debut was not lucky: a 1-0 loss in Lugo.
The last to try his luck, and not succeed, was Jon Pérez Bolo this season. Sarabia’s Andorra conquered the Tartiere, 0-1, in a warning to navigators.
