Match preview and analysis: Eldense (A)

It’s time. It’s the big one. It’s the partidazo. It’s number one vs number two. Castellón travel to Eldense as leaders, after the home side lost to Atletico Baleares last weekend. It’s the biggest game of the season so far for both sides, with so much at stake. A win for Castellón and they increase the gap to four points, giving them breathing room and making a huge statement to everyone in the division. Eldense win and they are back in the lead, and stop Castellón’s momentum dead in its tracks.

Eldense have an interesting backstory - they are a phoenix club rising from the ashes after match fixing allegations in 2017. The club from Elda reformed in 2021 with Pascual Perez, CEO of network provider Finetwork, at the helm. After significant investment, they were promoted from the Segunda Federation last year and appear to be on a rocket ship to at least the playoffs of the Primera RFEF this season. No fewer than 18 players were signed in the summer, as well as a new manager in Fernando Estevez.

Team news

While there are no serious injuries on paper for Castellón, a number of players had picked up niggles prior to the game against Amorebieta, so despite the magnitude of the game there may be a couple of changes. It will be interesting to see if Giorgi Kochorashvili keeps his place or Pablo Hernandez returns to the starting XI against a physical Eldense side. Raul Sanchez should be back available, so it’s also possible that Kone drops to the bench.

Opponent analysis

There is a lot to say about Eldense, and their style of play has clearly been working for them nine games into the season.

The first point is that their style is actually very similar to Castellón’s. Solid at the back and trying to emphasise set pieces while maintaining a more technical, passing mentality. Instead of a clash of different styles, this will be a clash of similar styles and a test of who can execute better.

According to analysis by @KiekensDrei on Twitter, Eldense are particularly good from crosses, leading the league in accuracy at 42%, compared to Castellón at 30.7%. Despite not having a huge physical presence up front (like Castellón), Eldense are seemingly able to convert at a high rate, through Juanto Ortuño and Mario Soberón in particular.

Soberón often plays more as an inside forward from the wing with Ortuño up front (at least that was the case against Baleares). But it’s interesting to see the similarity between Romera and Soberón. They are extremely similar both statistically and height wise, even though Romera has played more alone up front so far this season.

I can’t wait to see what a clash of such similar styles and players produces, but it will certainly be a physical battle and the players won’t be able to take any minutes off. They got away with it in the last 20 minutes last week against Amorebieta, but they won’t this time around.

Manager comments

Ruben Torrecilla, Castellón: “If we can keep a clean sheet, a lot of the hard work will be done. We need to be a solid team that defends well in both set pieces and open play. From those phases, we need to generate our attacking play.

We’re going up against a team who will want to assert their dominance in duels and physically, so we have to be ready and play our own game, as much as possible in the opponent’s half, and generate attacking opportunities.

We’re focused every week in the same way, no matter who we’re playing. They have a team to be at the top, but we’re counting on the fact that we can keep up and open up even more of a gap if we can win. But we can reflect on that after the game, now we must focus on competing at the highest level possible.'“