Mallorca play La Liga’s top time-wasters

I’ve just about got over the frustration of losing 1-0 at Real Sociedad last Saturday. In sport, and especially in football, Lady Luck is sometimes the determining factor and can decide a team’s future. In Mallorca’s case it’s not everything.

A single victory in 10 games cannot be solely down to bad luck. We had good luck on our side when we snatched a late winner at Celta Vigo a few weeks ago. Last Saturday at Sociedad we played some of our best football of the season but still came away with nothing.

Some people say bad luck is a fallacy often used in the game when we talk about unfair defeats. In the cold light of day Mallorca lost in San Sebastian because they didn’t take their chances when they came along.

Players like striker Cyle Larin, of whom so much has been expected, did not have sufficient quality (admittedly denied by good saves from Sociedad’s ’keeper) to put away three clear chances, all of which he would have buried at his last club Valladolid. We don’t have a cornucopia of chances (especially against better teams) and if you don’t put them away you don’t win games. In Larin’s case, if he had taken his opportunities, you would see me talking about a deadly predator in the 18 yard box. His goalscoring prowess has fallen off a cliff.

Mallorca must win this weekend’s game with only eight points from 10 games to show so far for our efforts. The complete lack of three points at home is beginning to weigh heavily on the minds of both players and fans. Our five draws see us just keeping ahead of the bottom three but any more home slip-ups could have dire consequences if we drop into the dreaded relegation zone.

Fans of tender years won’t remember a worse start for RCD Mallorca in the Spanish Primera than this campaign and it’s not what any of us Malloquinistas expected. With heavy investments from the owners on several players it was predicted the team would offer far better. Now, with nearly 20,000 season tickets sold and the new South end stand nearing completion, things just have to improve on the pitch.

Last season we also made a bad start after 10 games then we woke up and won nine points from a possible 12 in the next four games. We reached mid-table where we more or less stayed all season. This has to be our aim this time around. I have full confidence this Mallorca side can get back to winning ways as the important thing is not how you start but how you finish.

Things aren’t made any easier with the arrival of Getafe this weekend. Our record against them shows in 11 games they’ve won seven with four draws. Their coach Jose Bordalas has managed four teams in Spanish football and has never lost against RCD Mallorca.

It’s the very way he sets his teams up that puts him in the headlines every week. He’s got time-wasting, diving and play acting all worked out. So much so that in Getafe’s first game of the season against Barcelona the referee added on 25 minutes of stoppage time !!

Alicante-born Bordalas, one of 10 children, has always managed small clubs. He’s turned Getafe into a hard-to-beat side, very organised and intense. So intense that in last Sunday’s game against Betis the referee showed six yellow cards in the last 10 minutes of the first half!

Bordalas’s bullish attitude has his players well schooled in football’s dark arts and in Uruguayan defender Damian Suarez, the No 1 protagonist, the head assassin ! Under Bordalas’s tutelage all this skullduggery is part of the dance to win at all costs, defined by solidarity and solidity. They are a team no-one in La Liga wants to face. Spanish sports paper AS described facing Getafe as like a trip to the dentist, they make you suffer, sweat and bleed for every ball.

If you’re attending tomorrow’s game, fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride, with a plethora of yellow cards. Expected to play in the game is a certain Man. Utd loanee, Mason Greenwood. He recently joined Getafe after charges of attempted rape/assault and controlling and coercive behaviour were dropped in England. Greenwood was spotted earlier this week purchasing a meal from a fast food outlet with his father after Bordalas had banned his players from junk food. Greenwood risks facing a fine.

Mallorca make the long trip to play Galician part-timers CD Boiro in the Copa del Rey at 18:30 on Wednesday, November 1, to be shown live on Movistar. Boiro are top of their local league but I’m expecting a much changed Mallorca to come through unscathed.

AND FINALLY, the results of a survey from Bristol University regarding the life of the average sofa was released. Sofas last eight years, play host annually to 401 naps, 8508 hours of TV watching, 311 arguments, 316 drink spillages, 269 sleeps after a row and 268 “make up” sessions !