After a week when two Spanish footballers, Rodri and Morata, face charges from UEFA when they sang about Gibraltar being Spanish – nothing was said however about England fans in Frankfurt last month singing the controversial “Ten German Bombers” song! – Real Mallorca’s Serbian international goalkeeper Predrag Rajkovic is due to join an unspecified Saudi Arabian side in the very near future. Local TV station IB3 announced on Wednesday from Real Mallorca’s training camp in Birmingham that the details were being processed. The fee is expected to be around 10 million euros and his former club Stade Reims stand to take 30% in add-ons. It’s a good bit of business for Mallorca as they signed Rajkovic for two million euros two years ago. Many top footballers these days are joining the Saudi Arabian gravy train and receiving very succulent pay cheques along the way and Rajkovic has accepted a huge wage increase.
The money Mallorca receives for this transfer will be used towards the signing of a high level winger. The position is one of the demands of new coach Arrasate and would complete the squad for the new season.
Mallorca has three goalkeepers of the highest level, plus 40-year-old Ivan Cuellar. It looked likely Ibizan-born Leo Roman, who had a brilliant season on loan at second division side Oviedo last season, was on his way to Italian team Genoa. Mallorca wanted some additions to the proposed deal but the Italians weren’t in favour and pulled the plug.
The No. 1 goalkeeping door now opens for 27-year-old Slovakian Dominik Greif who showed during our cup run last season what a good goalkeeper he is.
Another Mallorca player in the news was Uruguayan defender Gio Gonzalez, reported to be on the radar of Russian premier league side FC Krasnodar, who have tabled a three million euro bid. Gio was one of our best players last season, playing 42 games between La Liga and the Copa del Rey, and is worth a lot more than three million. Once again the Russian club can pay a lot more money in wages than Mallorca and this may be the 29-year-old’s last chance of a big-money contract. Gio is determined to regain his place in his national side before the 2026 World Cup.
Real Mallorca have almost finished their few days of “cold weather” pre-season training in Birmingham and are expected back on the island over the weekend. The squad will play their second and third behind-closed-door friendlies against Barnsley today (Friday 26th) at 1pm and West Brom tomorrow (Saturday 27th) at 2pm (both Spanish times and to be shown live on IB3’s website).
I watched their comfortable 1-3 win against English second division side Crewe Alexandra last Sunday and there were several different aspects of our play on show from last season. Under new coach Jagoba Arrasate the team are playing a 4-3-3 system and we seem to be pressing much further up the pitch with the introduction of something called wingers!!
As usual in these friendly games each coach made a raft of changes and it was good to see Arrasate give all our academy players some minutes. For me the player who took the eye was new Japanese signing Takuma Asano. His inward runs caused havoc in the Crewe defence and he was heavily involved with our first goal which was scored from an unlikely source, right back Toni Lato.
This coming season we have a lot of non-Spanish players in the squad. In a globalised world as that of football, we can currently claim 10 players who are non-Spanish: Rajkovic (Serbia), Greif (Slovakia), van der Hayden (Belgium), Mojica (Colombia), Gonzalez (Uruguay), Valjent (Slovakia), Costa (Portugal), Muriqi (Kosovo), Larin (Canada) and Asano (Japan). Also, for the first time in ages, we have five Mallorca-born players in the squad: Mateu Morey, Abdon Prats, Sergi Darder, Javi Llabres and Antonio Sanchez.
In other news, ex Mallorca boss Javier Aguirre is to be the new manager of the Mexican national side for a third time. He’ll take charge until the end of the 2026 World Cup being held in Mexico, USA and Canada. Aguirre helped the Aztecs qualify for the 2002 and 2010 World Cups. Aguirre is more Mexican than Pancho Villa and this could well be the last job the 65-year-old will take.
And finally
The actor Rufus Sewell married a lady 29 years younger than him this past week, prompting stories about age differences in marriage. One went like this: Mavis met Myrtle at the shops. Mavis asked how Joe, the 20-years-older husband of Myrtle was doing. Myrtle said “You won’t believe what happened yesterday. I sent Joe out to the garden to get a cabbage for dinner and he dropped down dead.” “Oh my god,” gulped Mavis, “What did you do?” “I had to open a tin of peas,” replied Myrtle. Very practical these younger wives!