After a week when the Sly Old Fox pub in Birmingham has been told to change its name – as the woke brigade deemed it demeaning to foxes! – Real Mallorca are well on their way to staying in top flight Spanish football for another term. They have 21 points from 14 games and lie in 8th place. Forty points from 38 games is generally thought to be enough to keep teams in La Liga for the next season.
Although there are some discrepancies in our game (especially in the goal-scoring department), results have been good, from a team that regularly punch above their weight in top flight Spanish football. We have 11 more points than this time last season. Anything can happen in football but if they keep up their present trajectory, we’ll be closer to a European place than a relegation dogfight.
As if things weren’t challenging enough for a side like Real Mallorca, we now enter a week of huge demand in which we play three massive games against Valencia (tonight in Son Moix at 9pm), Barcelona (Tuesday, December 3 in Palma at 7pm) and away at Celta Vigo (Friday 6th at 9pm).
Mallorca fans have just about stopped talking about all the hullabaloo (one for the teenagers) during and after our 2-3 win in Las Palmas last Saturday. VAR continues to surprise, game after game. Last Saturday Pizarro Gomez in the VAR room decided to become the first referee to call for a review leading to an expulsion for a player showing an opponent “the fickle finger of fate”! The match referee Muñiz Ruiz decided to give Vedat Muriqi a direct red card for something never seen before (or if it had been, nobody bothered about it). Artificial intelligence should not have been used for what was a gesture used hundreds of times a season by players everywhere. Muriqi put out a sincere apology on social media earlier in the week to all Mallorca fans. He has nothing to apologise for. The disciplinary committee saw sense on Wednesday when they reduced the sentence to a one-match ban for the Kosovan striker, which means he’ll be able to play against Barcelona.
Thankfully our injury list which looked to be excessive after the “Battle of Gran Canaria” has improved and players like Abdon, Larin and Maffeo have been back training with the squad. The best news for me is the return of the Japanese winger Takuma Asano (“El Jaguar”) who hasn’t played since September 17 after a hamstring problem.
Tonight’s visitors Valencia played their first game for a month last Sunday when they beat Betis 4-2. Valencia find themselves mired in a sporting, institutional and social crisis which could have unpredictable consequences as they lie second bottom of La Liga. Valencia have been surviving for several years with academy players some of them not at Primera level. Majority shareholder and one of the richest men in the world, Singapore businessman Peter Lim, seems not to care about the club any more and he has been at the centre of many “Lim go home” demonstrations from angry Valencianistas.
The incident in Las Palmas has opened the proverbial can of worms. From now on, all eyes will be on every gesture of the players to see if it deserves intervention by VAR considering it offensive, insulting and/or humiliating. One gesture that is happening more and more in Spanish football is a player putting a finger to his temple when he doesn’t like the referee’s decision, indicating that he thinks the “arbitro is crazy”! If Muriqi’s finger had been punishable by a red card, a precedent would have been set. Teams could use the situation as a protesting weapon. As to the indirect free kick, it was taken from a position where the aggrieved Las Palmas player Mata was not occupying when the “heinous misdemeanour” was committed.
Our winning indirect free kick goal was brilliantly executed by Johan Mojica. It’s not easy to score with 11 players standing on the goal line looking like they’re all waiting for a bus! After a 90 second pow-wow, a plan was hatched as to how to take the kick and the Colombian made no mistake. Mojica is the best left back we’ve had in 15 years. He arrived in the Summer for a measly 1.5 million euros and signed a three-year deal. The versatility he shows and his speed down the left flank make him outstanding. It’s unbelievable how his previous clubs Osasuna and Villareal let him go for a song.
AND FINALLY, it is with great sadness that I have to mention the loss of a few local businesses in the UK as a result of Rachel Reeves’ recent budget announcements. A local bra manufacturer has gone bust, a submarine company has gone under, a manufacturer of food blenders has gone into liquidation, a dog kennel business has had to call in the retrievers, and a company supplying paper for origami enthusiasts has folded. A strip club has gone t*ts up, a florist is pruning its business and a dyno-rod franchise has gone down the drain. The saddest thing though is the Mr Whippy ice cream man found dead in his van covered in nuts and raspberry sauce. He couldn’t take any more and topped himself!!