Mallorca, in their penultimate home game of the season, took a major step towards confirming their place in next season's La Liga with a narrow 1-0 win over fellow holiday islanders Las Palmas in the Son Moix on a hot, sunny Saturday afternoon, in front of a 16,050 crowd. Before the game started there was a minute’s silence observed for the passing of Jaume Capllonch from Valldemossa, a former president of the Real Mallorca supporters clubs. It’s such a shame that some of our younger supporters don’t realise that as a mark of respect it’s customary to stand up, not to sit down looking at their phones.
This was Mallorca’s fifth 1-0 win in their seven victories this season and once again we had to depend on a defender to score our winning goal. After a melee in the penalty area in the 29th minute, Uruguayan Gio Gonzalez scored his third goal of the season. His effort was helped in by a Las Palmas defender but the goal was given to Gonzalez.
Once again Mallorca failed to put a game to bed after going ahead early doors and the agony for us fans continued. Although our early goal gave us some breathing space, it would have made life so much easier if we’d kept up our initial pressure and doubled the lead. Las Palmas, who are stuck in no-man’s-land, were rubbish but they nearly nicked an equaliser on the hour mark. Substitute Molerio hit a first-time volley that was brilliantly touched round the post by Rajkovic. By now Mallorca were hanging on by a thread, so much so that we had six bookings, four of them stupidly by giving the referee pelters. Two of these bookings, Martin Valjent and Vedat Muriqi, will miss Tuesday night’s game in Pamplona against Osasuna.
A lot of the Mallorca players looked like they wanted to be on the beach. With this win, and Granada joining Almeria in La Segunda next season, our lead for 24 hours from relegation candidates Cadiz is nine points, as they face mid-table Getafe tomorrow (Sunday 12th) at 2pm. Saturday’s hard-fought win was our first since we beat Granada 1-0 back in March.
Summing up: Mallorca once again did what they do best, defend tooth and nail and make us fans suffer in the process. Nice to see lots of tourists at the game, I can always tell by their white legs! They must have found this 90 minutes of football a horrible watch. Our last home game is against Almeria next Sunday (19th) at 7pm.
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