After a week when it was announced that the male version of Alexa will be released soon – it will be called Alex and you will have to ask the same question 10 times, then wait six months for an answer! – Real Mallorca will enter the red-hot cauldron known as the Riyadh Air Metropolitano stadium around 6.30pm tomorrow night (Saturday, February 1) where they’ll face Atletico Madrid. It’s all down to damage limitation for the Palma outfit who are winless so far in 2025. They also haven’t scored since Cyle Larin converted a 53rd minute penalty in a 0-1 win at Getafe on December 21. In the corresponding fixture in November 2023, an Antoine Griezman header saw an uninspiring “Atleti” snatch a 1-0 win. Since then they’ve spent big-time, bringing in Conor Gallagher from Chelsea and Julian Alvarez from Man. City.
The crowd could well be a full house of around 70,000 tomorrow night in probably the most animated stadium in Spanish football. Their supporters are the most feared in the land with their two groups of Ultras, “Frente Atletico” and “Bastion” (who used to fight each other) never far from the headlines. In England they would be compared to the Millwall Bushwhackers with their motto “No one likes us, we don’t care!”
Mallorca could be on a hiding to nothing but their main task is to keep the scoreline respectable. If Atletico score early doors, it’s going to be tough for the islanders. But football is a funny old game and, just maybe, Mallorca might score their first goal of 2025. The question is: who’s going to score the goal?
Larin had a small surge a few weeks ago but has returned to his usual sterility and Muriqi has only scored three goals this season. He’s not the player we Mallorquinistas are used to seeing and last Saturday against Betis he didn’t even start. In his six months on loan from Lazio in 2022, he scored five goals in 17 games.
Then later in 2022/23 he scored 15 in domestic football, being a key component of the club’s survival. Last term his goalscoring dropped dramatically (when he suffered a bad leg injury) down to seven goals. So far this campaign in 18 games he has found goalscoring difficult. The team needs him as soon as possible to regain his scoring habits. His goals are crucial to Real Mallorca’s cause.
Another player misfiring is Sergi Darder who’s still light years away from showing the kind of form he produced when he was a magician with Espanyol. His participation this season remains inconsequential. Darder and Larin have very high, long-term contracts that represent a considerable burden for the club due to their impact on the Spanish salary cap. We’ve waited long enough for these two players to show some consistency after their (for us) high transfer fees.
Like the Boomtown Rats, Spanish football fans don’t like Mondays. When I first started watching Real Mallorca in the Luis Sitjar ground back in the early ’80s, the traditional kick-off time would be 4.30pm or 5pm on Sunday afternoons. Then live TV coverage arrived in the late ’80s and kick off times changed according to the TV companies who were showing the games. Nowadays the weekend fixture lists in Spain’s first and second divisions are staggered over Friday night, Saturday and Sunday afternoon/night and Monday night. Another nonsense is the late decision on days and times which can be extremely irritating.
Things have come to a head with the news that our games at home to Osasuna on February 10 and away against Sevilla on February 24 are to be played on Monday night with a 9pm start. In a statement to La Liga HQ in Madrid, the Mallorca club and supporters club have expressed their dismay that we’re assigned times that make it difficult for fans to attend. These times seriously upset the team’s supporters, especially those with children and/or work commitments.
Mallorca have played eight, soon to be ten, games on a Monday night. Care to hazard a guess as to how many times Real Madrid or Barcelona have played on a Monday? Not even once between them!
More jiggery-pokery concerns Celta Vigo who regularly play on Monday night and can barely fill their newly refurbished stadium. They were recently fined by La Liga for having too low an attendance and were punished for not positioning enough fans in line with the TV cameras. If La Liga is so desperate to project the image of a full stadium, why don’t they schedule games for a time when fans can attend and set the date far enough in advance to ensure people can go?!
On Tuesday RCD Mallorca lodged a complaint to La Liga regarding the dates and times of its matches. I wonder how many parents have made a huge economic sacrifice by making their kids season ticket holders only to find that they can’t take them to football because the school curriculum isn’t compatible with the football scheduling.
AND FINALLY, an old Italian mafia don is on his death bed and calls his grandson to his bedside. He says “Luigi, I wanna you to listen to me. I wanna you to take mya 45 automatic pistol so you will always remember me.” The grandson replies “But Grandpa, I no lika de guns, howsabout you leave me your Rolex watch instead?” The old don tells him “You lissen to me sonny. You gonna runna my business, you gonna have a beautiful wife, lotsa money, a bigga home and maybe a couple of bambinos. Some day you gonna come home early and finda your missus in bed with another man. What you gonna do then? Point to your watcha and say ‘Time’s up’?!”
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