Elche and Cádiz, two teams recently promoted to LaLiga Santander, will fight this Saturday (2:00 pm) at the Martínez Valero stadium for three points that consolidate the winner as the great revelation of the first third of the championship.
Both teams, who have chained several days without winning, are installed in the upper middle area of the table, separated only by two points, and with the common denominator of having been more reliable at home than at home.
The Elche, ranked tenth, has linked three consecutive days without winning, so he needs to win again to stay out of the danger zone at the gates of a section of the competition in which he will face rivals with enormous potential.
The Elche coach, Jorge Almirón, recovers for this match Fidel Chaves and Juan Sánchez Miño, low last day due to injury, but not the Argentine Emiliano Rigoni, who is still in the process of recovering from his shoulder ailment.
Malian defender Youssouk Koné is doubtful after having suffered a flu during the week that has prevented him from exercising normally.
Despite the highs, Almirón has no intention of changing the game system and will use a defense of four again, in which Josema Sánchez, despite being a central defender, will repeat as a left back.
For his part, Cadiz visit to Elche with several casualties and, for the second consecutive week, without his coach, Álvaro Cervera, being able to align a team as similar as possible to the one that made an extraordinary start to the competition, especially at home with a victory included in the Real Madrid field (0- 1), which has taken the people of Cadiz to European squares.
The historical data of the Elche – Cádiz
Cervera has shown his players that they are capable of winning again away from home, as they did in the first four trips of the season.
The people of Cádiz want to forget the two defeats in a row they have led and that have brought them closer to nine teams from behind that could overcome them or tie on points, depending on the results.
In midfield, an important absence for the third consecutive day is that of midfielder José María Martín-Bejarano 'José Mari', who suffers a grade 2 sprain in the internal lateral ligament of one knee and a strain in the anterior cruciate ligament that keep you in dry dock.
The Argentine Augusto Fernández, who had been used by Cervera as a replacement and is suffering from an injury, will not be in this area of the field.
A loss that will affect the center of the defense for the second consecutive week is that of Juan Cala, who is also injured and who, against Real Sociedad, left his place in the starting eleven to Argentine Marcos Mauro.
Cervera will not be able to align his favorite pair of strikers either, due to the ailment suffered by Madrid's Álvaro Negredo and the absence of Honduran Anthony 'Choco' Lozano, who must regain his form after being isolated for two weeks due to an asymptomatic Covid positive -19.
The Central American player is already in Cadiz and has been discharged, but must rejoin the training dynamics before being available again.