Home, sweet home?

By José Antonio Jerruz Mancilla.

**With the league debut -against Linares Deportivo- just around the corner, the red and white team has the challenge of making their stadium, once and for all, an impregnable place.

The CD Estepona will kick off a new season, the fourth consecutive in the Second RFEF, with a very clear objective: to achieve the promotion of category. To do so, it is essential to be strong at the Muñoz Pérez stadium.

That is their great unfinished business. In each of the three previous years, he has always failed. It is often said that "statistics are there to be broken" and that must be one of the great challenges of the red and white team for the coming season.

**HASTE IS NOT A GOOD ADVISOR.

Despite being a newly "promoted", the objective of the property was, from the beginning, the promotion to the First RFEF. In the end, CD Estepona did not manage to achieve it, but finished the 2022/23 season in a more than creditable eighth place (47 points). At home, the red and red team obtained 47.06% of the points played at the Muñoz Pérez (24 points), with a balance of 6 wins, 6 draws and 5 defeats.

Far behind those achieved, in their respective stadiums, by the champion of that strange Group V, UD Melilla (41 points), and by the four teams that played in the playoffs for promotion: Atl. Madrileño (44 points); CDA Navalcarnero (32 points); CP Cacereño (33 points) and Gimnástica Segoviana (37 points).

WHAT BEGINS BADLY, ENDS BADLY.

The second season in the category began in the worst possible way. Four defeats in the first five matchdays shook the foundations of the new red-and-red project. A real catastrophe. With the passing of the matchdays, the Esteponero team managed to reverse the situation and finished the season 2023/24 in sixth position (49 points), staying at the gates of the playoffs. At home, they improved the score of the previous season, achieving 54.90% of the points played (28 points). On this occasion, the balance was 8 wins, 4 draws and 5 losses.

Two affiliates achieved promotion: Sevilla Atl. (41 points) and Betis Deportivo (37 points). The Sevilla side did it as Group IV champion, while the green-and-white team achieved it through the promotion playoffs. Alongside them, Yeclano Deportivo (34 points) and Marbella FC (35 points) were also promoted to the First RFEF. The other side of the coin was Orihuela CF (27 points), who fell just short of glory in the final against Barakaldo.

THE "KING OF THE DRAW"... INSUFFICIENT

The third attempt to achieve promotion was marked by the impossibility of playing the first matches of the season at the Francisco Muñoz Pérez. Having to do it in the facilities of Marbella Football Center, first, and in the old Municipal San Fernando, later, was a handicap for the future of the 2024/25 season.

Despite finishing in fifth position (55 points), the Reds' home record was rather poor. They barely obtained 50.98% of the points played (26 points), with a balance of 6 wins, 8 draws and 3 defeats.

Juventud Torremolinos**, as Group IV champion, FC La Unión Atl. -now called CD Unión Malacitano- and UCAM Murcia, all scored the same (35 points) in their respective stadiums, making them practically impassable fortresses. While Atlético Antoniano (33 points) also did the same in their peculiar field and that was enough for them to dispute the playoffs of promotion to Primera RFEF.

**MAKING A VIRTUE OUT OF NECESSITY

The numbers do not lie and making a good start to the league, in addition to making the Muñoz Pérez a real fortress, is essential for the aspirations of CD Estepona.

The red and red parish deserves, once and for all, to enjoy a good season at home. And the team, for its part, must make it their refuge, their home and their place of comfort, since "nowhere like at home ".