Las Blancas Season Preview: The Offense

Here’s part two of our CD Tacon preview. Part one, on the defensive line, can be found here.

We’re a little over a week away from our Las Blancas’ first regular season match against FC Barcelona Femení. So far, the results have been less than hopeful with two losses in the pre-season. There’s a lot to unpack there as they have undergone a significant number of changes this offseason. However, our offense looks pretty stacked and once the players are more in tune with each other, I think Tacon will be in good shape. They may not win the league this year, but they’ll stay well out of the relegation zone.

The Midfield

- Malena Ortiz (8) is the other twin on the team. Unlike her sister, Samara, Malena has represented the Azerbaijani half of their dual citizenship at the U19 level. Like her sister, she came from CD Canillas.

- Gema Prieto (17) is 23 and comes to us from Atleti’s B-Team.

- Ainoa Campo (20) is officially our newest signing and comes to us from Madrid CFF after playing with Rayo Vallecano. Ainoa has previously represented Spain’s U19 side.

- Thaisa Moreno (5) is most commonly known as Thaisa, or Isa. At 30 years old, she has played across multiple leagues, and had spent some time in the US with NWSL side, Sky Blue. She comes to us from AC Milan after being the one to tie the game at this summer’s World Cup against France. Her goal was the goal that ended up forcing extra time and penalties.

- Kosovare Asllani (9) is another World Cup participant that we brought in this summer. More specifically, she was the first signing that CD Tacon made after being bought by Real Madrid. She has had 90 plus appearances for her national team, Sweden, and also had a short stint with the Chicago Red Stars where she played with Megan Rapinoe and Brazil’s Cristiane.

The Forwards

- Sofia Jakobsson wears the number 10 for CD Tacon. She is national team teammates with Asllani and recently hit her 100^th cap with Sweden. Jakobssen comes to us after five seasons with Montpellier.

- Patri Carballo (18) is a former sprinter with a degree in physiotherapy from Rey Juan Carlos University. She is another player who comes to us from Atleti’s B Team, but has played for Tacon for the past two seasons.

- Lorena Navarro (19) came from Madrid CFF in 2016 and plays on the Spain U-19 team. In 2016, she won both a bronze medal and the Golden Boot at the U17 World Cup.

- Jessica Martinez (22) is a Paraguayan National Team player who joined Tacon back in 2018 from Santos in Brazil. She has scored five goals for Paraguay in two different Copa America tournaments.

- Ariana Arias (32) is one of the newer women to the team and has only played for CD Tacon. She made her debut just this past April by scoring a goal in the six-nil win over Salamanca FF.

Additions to the last article

As we still haven’t started the 2019/2020 season just yet, there are some additions to address from my last article with regards to the defensive line, and there may be more coming.

- Aurelie Kaci (6) joined CD Tacon in July as the third signing for the 2019/2020 season. She comes to us after two seasons with Atletico Madrid Femenina. Though she is a member of the French National Team, she has not plated in a major competition, such as the World Cup or the Olympics, due to injury and was not called up for the 2019 Women’s World Cup. She did, however, make multiple appearances in the UEFA Women’s Champions League finals with Olympique Lyon.

- Daiane Limeira (3) comes to us from PSG as another member of the Brazilian National Team and another player to participate in the 2019 Women’s World Cup. It is reported that she has somewhere between 18 and 23 siblings and sends money to her parents in order to help them buy their own house eventually.

- Maria Portoles, or Porto, (2) is a defender who was brought up from Juvenil B to the first team in time for the pre-season friendlies. She is one of our younger players at 16 and we are the only team that she has played for.

- Remember when we talked about the defense, and about the player that saved an opponent, literally, on the pitch during a game? Unfortunately, we sent Ana Saenz (Pipa) to Sporting Gijon prior to our pre-season starting.

With our first game of the season, we will be facing the likes of Spain’s Jenni Hermoso, and the Netherlands’ Lieke Martens in FC Barcelona Femení. These two will absolutely put our defense to the test while players like Stefanie van der Gragt will try to put a stop to our forwards. It will be a game of old against new in more ways than one as they are both older / more experienced than us and have been in the top flight longer. Tune in to Real Madrid TV on Saturday, September 7^th at 10 AM (Mountain) to see how CD Tacon fares against FC Barcelona Femení in the first ever Primera Division game.