A vital game on Sunday for R.C.D. Mallorca

After their exertions in drawing 0-0 in the first leg Copa del Rey semifinal on Tuesday night, Real Mallorca have now, over the next few weeks, a real fight on their hands to stay in top flight Spanish football.

Our precarious league position is worrying as we’ve only won three games out of 23 played and we’ve drawn 11 times. We’ve gone five league games without a win and have suffered two consecutive defeats without scoring a goal.

Stats also show we haven’t scored a goal in La Liga all season from outside the penalty area. I think it’s safe to say the Mallorca squad is not up to the level of the resurrected Son Moix stadium ! Things got a lot worse last weekend when both Celta Vigo and Sevilla won as we now find ourselves anchored in a three-way tie on 20 points with these two sides.

Sunday afternoon’s game is massive for the islanders and is what’s called in footballing jargon a “six pointer,” (a term used for a match between two sides fighting it out in a similar position in the league table, where the value of the points won has more weight when the other side fails to pick up three points).

After their lung-bursting efforts in forcing a 0-0 draw with Champions League participants Real Sociedad on Tuesday, I’m waiting to see if we’ll have any physical repercussions on Sunday afternoon.

Rayo are not the side they’ve been over the past couple of campaigns but they’re still formidable opponents who, like Mallorca, have hit a bump on the La Liga road as they’ve begun to slide down the table. Tuesday night also showed that in Dominik Grief we have a more than adequate replacement for our No. 1 ’keeper Predrag Rajkovic. Slovakian-born Grief made one brilliant stop on Tuesday night.

The sweetener of our Copa del Rey run has given fans false hope. After a dazzling first half against Girona in the quarter finals, our form has dipped alarmingly. Cup ties are notoriously unpredictable – anything can happen, whereas La Liga fixtures are almost all about regularly winning games.

We’ve been fortunate over the past few weeks to see the teams below us consistently dropping points. Now it’s our turn to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as we’ve forgotten how to win. In the real footballing world, stats of only winning three games from 23 would see the manager given his P45. The powers that be at Real Mallorca seem to like what our coach Javier Aguirre is doing and for now his job is safe.

Mallorca will have to face Rayo on Sunday without their Canadian striker Cyle Larin who’s suspended. He had a shaky start to the season after his 8 million euro move from Valladolid. Larin has a habit of talking back to referees and regularly gets into their faces. He has talked his way into their notebooks at least three times, hence the suspension. Thankfully Vedat Muriqi is almost back to full fitness as his goalscoring feats have been sorely missed.

After Rayo, we have another home game against Real Sociedad in La Liga on Sunday18th at 6:30pm. Then we’re away at our ex manager Luis Garcia Plaza’s Alaves on Saturday 24th at 6:30pm. That will serve as a prelude to the second cup semifinal match in San Sebastian on Tuesday 27th at 9:30pm.

One player who turns in top performances every week is 23-year-old Portuguese midfielder Samu Costa. Time after time this season, he’s been our man of the match. In the recent Betis game, Samu took a hard knock on his right leg abductor muscle. At first it was thought he’d be out for some time but his speedy recovery has had a touch of the “bionic man” (one for the teenagers!) about it. When he left the pitch on Tuesday night he was given a standing ovation.

There’s no doubt Samu was the most profitable signing last Summer, arriving from Almeria for three million euros in a “barter” deal which included Idrissu Baba taking Samu’s place at Almeria. According to the website “Transfer market” Samu’s valuation has gone up to 8 million euros. Nicknamed the “Gladiator” by the fans, he certainly doesn’t take prisoners and if we had another 10 like him we wouldn’t be in our present precarious position.

There’s no doubt the strangest story of the week took place during the Rayo/Sevilla game. The three-sided Vallecas ground sees the fans literally breathing down the players’ necks. In the 33rd minute Sevilla star Lucas Ocampos came over to the sideline to take a long throw-in.

Just as he was bending over like a coiled spring, a young fan in the front row reached out and poked his finger “where the sun don’t shine!” A number of young fans nearby saw the funny side and burst out laughing. The player himself was furious, as you’d expect, turning to the culprit and telling him off before continuing the game.

After the final whistle Ocampos called for action from La Liga, even likening the incident to sexual assault. Ocampos said “I kept my calm because I have two daughters and I hope this doesn’t happen to them. Sadly there’s always a fool out there and I hope La Liga takes action because if this happened in women’s football we all know what could happen.” Rayo will ban the young fan once he’s been identified.

AND FINALLY, you know you’re past it when: (1) You start getting symptoms in the places you used to get urges, (2) You feel like the morning after but did nothing the night before, (3) In a hostage situation you’d be released first, (4) You have more fingers on your hands than real teeth in your mouth and (5) The pharmacist has become your new best friend.