Real Mallorca came out of their fourth pre-season friendly unscathed after a creditable draw against the third-placed team in Italy’s Serie A and Champions League participants Napoli on Sunday night, drawing 1-1.
So far in our pre-season, we’re undefeated, but after Sunday night no longer have kept a clean sheet. A goal by (“Der Kaiser” and club captain) Antonio Raillo in the second half saw the Son Moix side share the spoils after Napoli threatened to run riot in the first half.
Mallorca went behind as early as the ninth minute when an innocuous ball in the penalty area allegedly grazed Copete’s elbow and the Italian referee pointed to the spot. 70 million euro Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen (complete with Zorro mask) fired home the spot kick, 1-0.
Apart from that, very few things happened in the first half, with Mallorca looking bereft in attack, never threatening the Neapolitan’s goal and in mid field we were poor with Baba having a nightmare.
At the back, however, we looked solid and new-signing Serbian goalkeeper Predrag Rajkovic didn’t have much to do. So far this pre-season, we’ve played teams a couple of rungs below us, but on Sunday we faced a quality Napoli team although at times towards the end they looked like they wanted to be somewhere else, playing in a nearly empty Teofilo Patini stadium.
After the break the game changed for us, with the introduction of Muriqi and Kang In Lee. In the 57th minute Jaume Costa crossed the ball from the left, Muriqi had a touch without apparent danger, but the Napoli keeper made a howler allowing Raillo to deflect the ball into the net with his head.
With the score now level, Mallorca showed much more commitment and Kang In Lee, Grenier and Muriqi showed some neat touches. Mallorca held on comfortably for a draw, with our coach shuffling the cards with wholesale changes as time ran out.
All credit also to Dani Rodriguez who plays much better in his natural position in the middle of the pitch. The presence of Muriqi up front made so much difference. The only worry for me is with Aguirre’s defensive 5-3-2 line up, Muriqi is starved of service and we can expect three or four more new signings coming in very soon.
Next Sunday is our final pre-season friendly when we play UD Ibiza in their Can Misses ground.