Ion Etxaniz: SD Amorebieta & Las Llanas – Player Interview

Derbies are always attractive matches with a special touch. The Sestao River-Amorebieta, which will be held this Sunday at 5:30 p.m. in Las Llanas, will be no less. Ion Etxaniz, current forward for the blues, knows this well, as he has had two stages in green and black. In the first of them, more than a decade ago, he scored fourteen goals. The last one, last season, in which he scored five goals that did not help to avoid relegation to the Second Federation.

For the Elorrio striker, Sestao River “is a very special place, it is a team that I appreciate very much and I have always felt at home there, I am very excited to go to Las Llanas,” he tells EL CORREO. “In Las Llanas you breathe football and everyone likes to play there,” he says. Likewise, after last year’s relegation, he claims to have “that pain still in my body, I have that very marked memory.” Now he will return to the fiefdom of Sestaota with a different shirt.

At Amorebieta he has played twelve games – four as a starter and eight coming off the bench – in which he has scored a goal. “I was hoping things would be a little better personally,” he admits. The Zornotzarra team, also relegated from the First Federation, is eighth. They are four points away from the play-off places and five from Sestao River. In that sense, he is positive. “I trust that everything will go better in the second round,” he highlights.

He says that they have returned from the Christmas break “with the desire to be more consistent, raise the level and take the line of the games in which we have been good.” Thus he has the “dream” of being able to qualify for the promotion play-off. Although he is aware of the difficulty that this entails. For this, this Sunday’s duel takes on great importance. “I foresee a very contested match, it depends on how the grass is, it could lead to a very physical match with a lot of duel,” he underlines. Las Llanas will witness an exciting start to the year for both squads.