Real Mallorca 1 - Barcelona 5
Real Mallorca and their fans were given a reality check on Tuesday night when they were humbled 1-5 by a highly impressive Barcelona in front of a full house of 22,352. The visitors fell to a shock 1-2 defeat by Las Palmas last Saturday and Mallorca coach Jagoba Arrasate warned his players that they would see a different Barcelona side on Tuesday night.
Mallorca fell behind as early as the 12th minute when a calamitous mix-up in our defence saw Ferran Torres bundle in the opener. The Palma side looked stunned after the opener but to their credit they equalised just before half time. Pablo Maffeo went on the charge and unselfishly passed to an out-of-form Muriqi who tapped home from close range.
Whatever Barça’s coach German Hansi Flick said to his team at half time worked wonders as they upped several gears and put Real Mallorca to the sword. A soft penalty award saw Rapinha score his 15th goal of the season as Mallorca looked to be chasing shadows. During the game we were caught offside eleven times (and didn’t have a single shot on target) as we committed a chain of defensive errors which Barcelona took full advantage of, scoring three more second half goals, all of them gifts. We had no answer to the trickery of Yamal and Rapinha and the form Barcelona showed in the second half would have beaten any side in Europe.
Luckily for us, La Liga’s leading scorer, Robert Lewandowski, was left on the bench. God knows what the score would have been if he’d been playing! With Lamine Yamal turning on the style, Mallorca were in the middle of a nightmare as our defence fell to pieces. This result gave Mallorca their worst defeat in years. Against a side with the quality of Barcelona we were punished big time in what was a night to forget for RCD Mallorca. Arrasate has now to pick his side up as they lick their wounds with Celta Vigo lying in wait on Friday night in the Estadio Balaidos.