Match Preview: Santa Pola CF vs CD Jávea

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SANTA POLA CF vs CD JÁVEA
Sunday 13th April 2025, 11.30am
Estadio Municipal Manolo Macia, Santa Pola

GETTING THERE

Santa Pola CF play at the Estadio Municipal Manolo Macia which is located on the outskirts of the town close to the N-332. It is about 1 hour 25 minutes drive from Xàbia. The natural grass football pitch is surrounded by an athletics track and there is one main stand on the southern side with seating in the club colours of red and white.

OUR OPPONENTS

Santa Pola CF was formed in the late 1960s as ‘Union Deportiva Santa Pola’. Legend has it that football was brought to the town by a team of English researchers who were studying the marina fauna along the coast. During their free time, they would play a strange game on the beach between two sides which consisted of hitting a ball with their feet. The town’s children watched on open-mouthed at this sport that the English called ‘football’. When the researchers return to England, they took their samples and experiments back with them but couldn’t take the love of a new sport that had grown in the town, an enthusiasm that grew into the formation of a football club.

UD Santa Pola joined the Segunda Regional of the Murcian Football Federation (FFRM) for the 1968/69 season and within two years, the club had won promotion to the top level of regional football. Due to the fact that many players of UD Santa Pola did not come from the town, a new club was formed in the late 70s called Atlético Santa Pola which featured players which were exclusively Santapoleros. However, a financial crisis at the original club saw the two merge in 1979 to become Santa Pola CF.

During much of the 80s, the club continued to play in the FFRM Primera Regional until switching to the Valencian region in 1987, joining the Regional Preferente-South when it remained the next ten years until it finished runners-up at the end of the 1996/97 season and finished top of the pile in the play-offs in a round-robin group against UD Alzira and CD Betxí to win promotion to the Tercera División, level 4 in the national pyramid in Spanish football.

And there Santa Pola CF remains for almost a decade, finishing 4th in Group 6 at the end of the 2004/05 season, their highest finish in their history, to win a chance to take the next step through the play-offs. However, the club lost a two-legged semi-final 5-2 against Águilas CF, champions of Group 13 (FFRM).

The disappointment seemed to be long-lasting and the following season, the club finished rock-bottom of Group 6 and were relegated back to the regional system, joining the FFCV Regional Preferente Group 4. Turbulent times followed and might have folded were it not for a small but enthusiastic team led by Juan Miguel Vallés who embarked on a restructuring of the club, particularly at the youth level.

Santa Pola CF finished bottom of Group 4 at the end of the 2024/15 season and were relegated to the second tier of regional football for the first time since the 1986/87 campaign. The club finished top of Group 8 at the end of the COVID-affected 2019/20 season to win promotion back to the Regional Preferente and finished in the top half of Group 4 at the end of the 2022/23 season to win a spot in the inaugural Lliga Comunitat, the new top tier of regional football in the Comunidad Valenciana.

However, like CD Jávea, that first season didn’t go to plan and Santa Pola CF finished in the bottom three to suffer immediate relegation to the newly formed Primera FFCV, the second tier of the FFCV regional pyramid.

HEAD 2 HEAD

CD Jávea and Villena CF have played each other 17 times since their first meeting on October 4th 1987 when the rojiblancos lost 0-3 in Santa Pola; the return match on March 27th 1988 resulted in a 2-1 win for CD Jávea. At the end of the season, CD Jávea finished 8th, seven points off the play-offs whilst Santa Pola concluded the season in 15th three points above the relegation zone.

The biggest victory for CD Jávea was on January 8th 1989, a 2-0 victory in a season in which the rojiblancos completed the first of only two ‘doubles’ over the Santapoleros, winning the away match 2-1 on the final day of the season.

By contrast, Santa Pola CF have recorded two 3-0 wins over CD Jávea during the 1987/88 season and the 2007/08 season, the later being the only campaign that the Santapoleros have managed to do the ‘double’ over the rojiblancos.

This season, Santa Pola have already taken three points from CD Jávea when they won at the Campo d’Esports Municipal back in December and have become one of the clubs which are vying for promotion to the Lliga Comunitat.

They currently sit in 4th spot, seven points behind the rojiblancos, and have the distinct advantage of playing four of their last six games at home after being forced to play several games on the road earlier in the season.

This weekend’s clash pits one of the best home teams against one of the best away teams; Santa Pola have averaged 2.0 points per game on their own turf whilst CD Jávea have average the same 2.0 points on the road. Thus, the statistics seem to suggest a stalemate is on the cards and, since Santa Pola’s current form includes four draws in the past six games, that might be the case. However, this is a true “six-pointer” for both teams. A win for Santa Pola and they maintain their claim for a top spot whilst a win for Jávea edges them closer to their first championship since the 1989/90 season.

PRIMERA FFCV – Group 4

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