Tenerife vs Las Palmas Predictions & Match Preview

Tenerife vs Las Palmas predictions and match preview for Wednesday’s Segunda Division Play-Off Semi-Final 1st Leg. Read on for analysis ahead of this big derby clash.

Tenerife vs Las Palmas Preview

Tenerife face Las Palmas in the first match of the Segunda Division play-offs. This is the Canary Islands derby, one of Spain’s most passionate local rivalries, and the two matches this week will rank up there with the very biggest derbies that have ever been played out between the two clubs.

Tenerife have home advantage first having ultimately finished lower than Las Palmas in the table. That seemed a highly unlikely scenario until very recently given they were actually 8 points clear of their great rivals with only 3 to play.

Luis Miguel Ramis’s side ended the campaign with 3 straight defeats, a disappointing way to go into these decisive games but it was a fabulous campaign up until that point. Tenerife did brilliantly to largely keep pace with recently relegated Eibar and Real Valladolid, as well as big spending Almeria, despite a significantly inferior budget. However it was always most likely going to be the play-offs rather than automatic promotion with Tenerife ranked between 3rd and 5th ever since they climbed into the top six on matchday 12.

The derby element may help further to remind Tenerife and their players that this is very much now a cup format, with recent form largely an irrelevance. That will be the message Ramis will try to instil in his players. He’ll also be aware that this is not an outright “must win” game with Tenerife sure to take confidence from the Segunda Division’s best away record when they make the short trip to Gran Canaria at the weekend.

While Tenerife have been confident of their play-off place for some time, Las Palmas’ end to the season has been very different. They’ve been in “final” mode for some time with almost every game in recent weeks feeling like a must-win. They were as low as 14th as recently as matchday 31 but an extraordinary run has seen them win 9 of their 11 games since then, drawing the other 2, to seal a play-off place with a 1-0 win in Gijon on Sunday.

After a slow start to his reign after he replaced Pepe Mel in January, former Barcelona B boss García Pimienta has really transformed the club’s fortunes and it almost feels like Las Palmas come into these play-offs as the team to beat now given their remarkable form. They are unbeaten in 7 away games too and can also take confidence from a derby victory on this ground in January.

Tenerife vs Las Palmas Predictions

Score Prediction: Tenerife 1-1 Las Palmas

The momentum here is with Las Palmas who have been on a roll heading into the end of the season. However to have a game of this magnitude just three days after the effort they put in over in Asturias is also less than ideal and that may just help Tenerife a bit, who have been focusing on this date for some time now. It’s likely to be a very fierce and competitive tie with not much to separate the teams and it’d be a surprise if anything is settled in the 1st Leg.

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