“Life is good; grateful“he wrote Raúl de Tomás from the terrace of your room, in the Espanyol concentration hotel, in Marbella, located on the seafront. The same Costa del Sol that this Wednesday will host the Espanyol debut 2021-22 (at 7:00 p.m., peninsular time), that of the return to the First Division, with the same faces as in Second and against a rival that was precisely the face and the cross for the parrots last season: Las Palmas. Except for your own RdT, who keeps some pending accounts.
Despite the fact that “life is good” and the fact that he was 'top scorer' in Segunda last year, with 23 goals, cannot really complain, against Las Palmas he is accompanied by a kind of curse. First because on five occasions he has faced the insulares, 264 minutes in total, and has never managed to score them, an unusual case given its effectiveness. And second, because in the two clashes as a Espanyol player he was an involuntary protagonist.
In Gran Canaria, in the first game of 2021, an offside of his so millimetric that it could not be – the referee and linesman ignored it, the controversial VAR of Santiago Varón Aceitón sanctioned it after four minutes of deliberation – prevented a goal from Nico Melamed that would have prevented defeat from getting on the scoreboard Espanyol (1-0), along with a highly disputed red to Lluís López. And there began a pothole of parakeets.
And in the Second round, at the RCDE Stadium, could not participate in the local festival, with a 4-0 that Javi Puado got on track with a hat-trick in just 14 minutes, in this case of their own free will. With the 3-0 already on the scoreboard, Álvaro Moreno Aragón declared penalty for clear hands from Álvaro Curbelo, which De Tomás preferred to give up for Adrián Embarba to materialize. The reason is that the 'top scorer' came from failing three maximum penalties in as many consecutive days, against Albacete, Leganés and Almería, for which he acted for the benefit of the group.
Now a new season begins, a return to the category that belongs to Espanyol and Raúl de Tomás, and surely this Wednesday's result against Las Palmas will be more testimonial than decisive, but the squad wants to continue in First with the winning inertia of Second, and especially a 'top scorer' who never tires of scoring goals. And more if it can be, for the first time, against Las Palmas.