After a week when a poor man in France who, after a love affair had gone wrong, tried to gas himself but, while lighting a last cigarette caused an explosion and, finding himself on fire, jumped into a water tank and drowned! – Real Mallorca returned to the island last Sunday after their week of pre-season games against modest opposition in England. They beat Crewe Alexandra 1-3, together with Barnsley and West Brom by the same 0-1 score.
The last game turned into the “Battle of the Baggies” when our midfielder Samu Costa and West Brom’s Republic of Ireland defender Jason Molumby had a set-to after a tackle from Costa upset the Irishman, who finished the incident by assaulting Costa with a clenched-fist punch in the face. When Costa was going off, he ripped off his shirt and threw it on the ground. That didn’t go down well on social media with Mallorquinistas.
Mallorca continued their pre-season with a comfortable 0-5 win over local third division side Poblense in Sa Pobla on Wednesday night in the 52nd agricultural trophy, known locally as the Potato Cup, on a pitch that looked like a crop of Golden Wonders had been planted on it. The partnership of Japanese winger Takuma Asano and Vedat Muriqi looked awesome. The big Kosovan striker scored a brace, with other goals coming from Raillo, Abdon Prats and the youngster Domenech.
Tomorrow (Saturday August 3) they will play a couple of second division sides in two 45-minute games away at CF Burgos in the morning and CD Mirandes in the evening. The following Saturday, August 10, is the City of Palma Cup game, this time against Serie A side Bologna who are in this coming season’s Champions League. The game in the Son Moix kicks off at 20:30.
The most obvious outcome of all these pre-season friendlies is that under new coach Jagoba Arrasate, Mallorca will line up in a 4-3-3 formation, a system that worked well for him at Osasuna. That means playing with two wide attackers (wingers) and one of them has already been ruled out for a time with an injury. Binissalemer Javi Llabres tore abductor muscles in his thigh and after surgery in Barcelona faces up to three months on the sidelines.
Both star players for Mallorca, Vedat Muriqi and Sergi Darder, still didn’t look up to match fitness and it should be interesting to see where Arrasate plays Cyle Larin because in a 4-3-3 system there’s only room for one striker. Mallorca have lost two players in the Summer transfer window. The first one was a surprise when Uruguayan defender Gio Gonzalez left for Russian premier league club Kranodar for four million euros.
Despite recently signing a contract extension last year, the money he’ll get in Russia is more than double he got here and at 29 it could well be his last contract in top class football. There was a hold-up in the transition from Spanish to Russian football for Gio due to sanctions on Russia because of their internationally-condemned war and land grab in Ukraine.
The sale of Serbian goalkeeper Predrag Rajkovic to Saudi Arabia side Al-Innihad, where Karim Benzima plays, is almost complete. An amount of around 10 million euros seems to be the transfer fee, which I find is cheap, made worse by the fact that his selling club to Mallorca, Stade Reims in France, will take 50% of any transfer fee. He said farewell to his team mates on Wednesday before heading to Portugal where his new club are on pre-season. The money from both these players’ transfer fees will go some way towards bringing in a couple of quality attackers, especially down the flanks.
It was reported on Tuesday that over 18,000 season tickets have been sold before the La Liga campaign kicks off on Sunday, August 17. With two weeks still to go, that figure could well reach and surpass the historic 20,700 of last season. The club’s main objective is to reach 23,000, although that may change depending on what kind of start to the season we make. Three thousand seats will be available to non “socios” on match days as ticket sales revenue is a prime source of income. The capacity since stadium refurbishment is now 26,020.
And finally
A man is walking around the zoo when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion’s cage. Suddenly the lion grabs her by her sleeve and tries to pull her inside. Her parents start screaming. The man leaps towards the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch. Whimpering from pain, the lion releases his vice-like grip on the girl. The man grabs the terrified girl and returns her to her thankful parents. Just then a reporter approaches the man and says “That was the most gallant and brave thing I’ve ever seen in all my life. I’m a journalist from The Guardian newspaper, this incident won’t go unnoticed, this story will be on the front page tomorrow. Tell me, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?” The man replies “I’m a sergeant in the Royal Marines and I voted Conservative at the last election.” The following morning the man buys a copy of The Guardian to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads on the front page “Royal Marine assaults African immigrant and steals his lunch”!
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