Ceuta – Albacete

The mid-table teams will play a high-scoring match.

In the final round of the Segunda, a significant number of matches will take place that lack real tournament drama. One of them will be the showdown in the town of Ceuta, located on the African continent. The team represents the autonomous city of the same name within Spain, separated from the European part of the country by the Strait of Gibraltar. Ceuta has never won anything in Spanish football, and in the 2021/2022 season it played in the country’s fourth-tier division. The current Segunda edition began for the team as a newcomer to the division and it did not enjoy the trust of bookmakers, who expected it to return to the third-tier league of Spain. Although Ceuta had secured its place in Segunda well before the season’s end, it remained with the lowest squad value in the division. The architect of Ceuta’s success was the 51-year-old coach José Juan Romero. This specialist took charge in 2022, after which he has consistently progressed. Albacete is a regular in Segunda. The club is finishing its fourth season in this division, with the status of a stable mid-table side. With this squad there has also been one coach working for quite a long time – Alberto González. The opponents approach the head-to-head on adjacent positions, 10th and 11th. The clubs are well off the promotion zone and well ahead of the relegation zone. Bookmakers did not identify favorites for the upcoming match, offering a slight tilt of the odds toward the home team. Since the opponents have been led by the same coaches for quite a long time, it is worth paying attention to their first head-to-head meeting of the current season. In Albacete, the home side had the edge in play, but could not convert it into goals. Ceuta focused on defense and achieved an acceptable result — 0:0. The second meeting between the clubs will take place under conditions of no tournament motivation. There is a high likelihood that from the first game's content José Juan Romero and Alberto González will draw conclusions and try to play differently, without the pressure of needing a result, in order to achieve a winning outcome. The Ceuta match is expected to produce at least three goals.