Going all out, with blind confidence in the work done in recent weeks and in the few but still plausible options that mathematics gives them, Amorebieta faces this Saturday the most decisive game of a season that is about to end. A duel in the sun at the Cartagonova Stadium in which the zornotzarras will try to take advantage of their penultimate bullet to achieve a victory that could prolong the dream of continuing to fight for permanence in the Second Division for another week.
The tremendously delicate situation of Urritxe’s men, five points from safety with only six on the table, means that even achieving that long-awaited victory they have to say goodbye to the silver category. The difference is such in the classification that the Biscayans need the setbacks of Sporting de Gijón, but especially Málaga, to be able to risk everything on the last day in the shelter of their fans in Lezama. “And there, whatever happens, happens,” Haritz Mujika reviewed before leaving for Cartagena.
Because that is the great ambition of Amorebieta: to be able to reach the grand final by relegation with the field factor in their favor. But the zornotzarras have left homework to do along the way and the punishment is not depending on themselves and having to look askance at their opponents. An uncomfortable and tense situation with which they will have to know how to deal so as not to be the ones who give wings to the rest of the teams involved in the fight. The management of moods, anxiety, the desire to win will be absolutely vital in a penultimate duel of the season with so much at stake.
A clash in Cartagena will not want to be a stone guest either, as Huesca was not in Lezama a week ago. Amorebieta will have to defeat the team from Efesé, who aspire to end the season in ninth position, defeating Urritxe’s side. It would be his second-best ranking in history.
Assaulting the black and white fiefdom will not be easy for Haritz Mujika’s men, for whom the inability to add wins on their trips has prevented them from being in a more placid situation now. You are not the worst visitor to the Second Division by chance. Because if Cartagena has been saved for days, it is precisely because of the strength shown in their arena, where they have won twelve and tied two others of the twenty duels played in front of their fans. A hobby before which they will want to say goodbye with a good taste in their mouths in an appointment in which Alberto de la Bella will hang up his boots.
That is one of the tricks that Amorebieta will try to play in their favour, ‘trusting’ that Luis Miguel Carrión’s men relax between farewells and goodbyes. Make a virtue of their need and demonstrate on the green of Cartagonova that they are the ones who yearn for victory, putting one gear more than their rival, struggling with intensity and fine-tuning the point of view to the maximum. Win… and hope that by ten o’clock at night, when the rest of the matches are over, the accounts will continue to come out.
For this meeting, the coach of Pasajes has all his troops at his disposal, with the exception of Roberto Santamaría, who has not entered the call yet with physical discomfort. Knowing Mujika, and seeing what has been seen in recent weeks, no big news is expected in his eleven for this match. Most likely, Unai Marino will return to goal after the forced rotation of the previous day and that Koldo Obieta will be the companion of Gorka Guruzeta at the point of attack.
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