Real Valladolid this season has always been a team that has been saving each and every one of the ‘match balls’ with which it has been encountering. Against Eibar, in Ipurua, only the three points were worth given the qualifying urgencies to fight for direct promotion and Pacheta’s team did it again with their best version. He won and played very good football. He left the distance between the two teams at just two points. Eibar had been scoring points in its stadium for 18 games, with 13 wins and five draws, until the blanquivioleta visit.
No one doubts that if the team plays the next three games the same way it played against the gunsmith team, the chances of victory are much greater in these three finals that Real Valladolid has left to fight for direct promotion. And it is that this season, the Pucela offers its best version against the strong teams and its worst version against the theoretically weakest teams and from the bottom of the classification.
The next rival is Deportiva Ponferradina, a team that is playing to enter the promotion playoff in the ayear of its centenary and a “friend” club. Every summer, Tomás Nistal, his technical secretary, asks Real Valladolid for a footballer and ends up taking him on loan. Kuki Salazar is the last one, although this one was owned, and surely his motivation will be maximum if he has to jump onto the field of play. Whenever these two teams face each other, our beloved Manolo Peña comes to mind, he played for both teams, as well as for Real Zaragoza in his professional career, and he left us too soon at just 46 years old. I am sure that from heaven they will not lose a game that will be a real final for both teams and that neither will sell defeat cheaply.
Real Valladolid should not be trusted and take the game very seriously, it is useless to watch the games of Eibar and Almería, if the Pucela does not solve the three remaining games with three victories; because the one that cannot fail or yield or a tie, is the blanquivioleta team, if it wants to ascend directly to the First Division. The other day many people wondered why Eibar is ahead in the standings playing the way they play, but the merit went to Pacheta and his team, who minimized the virtues of the armory team.
There are footballers who in this final stretch of the season are having a very important role such as Iván Sánchez, whose performance pleases the blanquivioleta parish very much and who has earned a place in the starting eleven with total and absolute justice. A player who does not lose the ball, capable of filtering balls with great precision to attacking players and with a fantastic shot.
Hopefully Alejandro Sanz’s concert can be held on June 18 at the José Zorrilla stadium, it would be a sign that Real Valladolid is already a First Division team. If third in the standings and reaching the final for promotion, the second leg would be held on one day of the weekend of June 18 and 19 at the home of Ronaldo’s team. So I am sure that Alejandro Sanz will be very aware of the possible promotion of Pucela, and wishing not to move that initial date any more at the José Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid.