After a week when a friend of mine sent me the following signs seen on his recent travels to India – (1) “Ramganga river is inhabited by crocodiles, swimming is prohibited, survivors will be prosecuted !” (2) “Customers who find our waiters rude ought to see the manager” and (3) Caption for a photo in Dehli airport of a London Routemaster bus “Double Dicker” ! – Real Mallorca head for Bilbao where they’ll play Athletic Club in San Mames tomorrow night (Saturday, October 4) at 18:30.
Real Mallorca are in a five-team gridlock (as we reach match day eight) on five points alongside Real Sociedad, Celta Vigo, Rayo Vallecano and Levante. All this could well mean the mother of all relegation battles come the end of the season. Out of these five teams, Rayo and Celta are going to find this season all the more difficult as they are in European competitions.
It’s taken a while, but Mallorca finally found out what winning’s all about in La Liga this season when they squeezed past Alaves in Son Moix 1-0 last Saturday. When the referee blew for the end of the game, the stadium announcer/DJ blasted out the tune “Freed from Desire” and the players were dancing around like they’d won the league ! Let’s see tomorrow night if our win last Saturday has re-energised the players against a struggling Athletic Club who played away in the Champions League at Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday night (losing 4-1). Athletic Club’s form has plummeted a bit since their star man, Nico Williams, has been out injured although it’s likely he’ll be back tomorrow night.
Real Mallorca have received a major setback when Japanese winger “Taku” Asano suffered a hamstring injury in his left leg, an area where he has been dealing with numerous ailments since joining from German side Bochum last Summer. The reality is Asano hasn’t finished a single match, either due to physical issues or the coach’s decisions.
All in all he’s suffered from five recurring hamstring issues and now he has another which will sideline him for up to six weeks. It would appear his hamstrings are his anatomy’s weak spots and perhaps we should start calling him “sicknote,” the nickname given to another injury-dogged player of years gone by, England’s Darren Anderton. Asano is not alone with his hamstring problems, two other players, Marash Kumbulla and Omar Mascarell, are also receiving treatment for hamstring tweaks.
With Asano missing and Jan Virgili away on Spanish Under 20s duty in Chile, we now only have one “pure” wing player available, Binissalem’s Javi Llabres who made his debut last Saturday in the 87th minute. Coach Arrasate has a juggling act to perform in moving players around to play them out of position down the flanks.
Tomorrow’s game sees Mallorca’s captain Antonio Raillo make history when he plays his 300th game for Mallorca. The Cordoba native becomes only the sixth player in the club’s history to reach the triple century mark. Without doubt he has been one of the best central defenders ever to pull on a Mallorca red shirt and has become a true legend.
COPA DEL REY CHANGES
On Monday, October 6, the first qualifying round for La Liga teams in the 2025/26 Copa del Rey will take place in Madrid. The new feature this season is that the first two rounds will be based on geographical proximity. That means six teams from the Balearics go into the first round pot. Real Mallorca (Primera), UD Ibiza (First Federation), Atletico Baleares and, from Sa Pobla, Poblense (Second Federation), Constancia (Third Federation) from Inca and Sant Jordi from local Division de Honor Preferente. The Copa del Rey was Mallorca’s downfall last season. We lost to non-league Pontevedra 3-0 and then only won one league game from January to May.
AND FINALLY, a man from Liverpool was touring the USA on holiday and stopped at a remote bar in the Nevada hills. He got chatting to the bartender when he spied an old Native American sitting in the corner. The old guy had all the tribal gear on. “Who’s he ?” the Scouser asked, the bartender told him “That’s the memory man, he’s nearly 100 years old and remembers everything, faces, facts, history, geography, go on, try him out.”
So the guy went over and thinking he won’t know anything about English football, asked him “Who won the 1965 FA Cup final ?” “Liverpool,” the memory man replied. “Who did they beat ?” “Leeds United,” came the instant reply, “and the score was 2-1.” “Who scored the winning goal ?” “Ian St John.”
The Scouser was impressed as he returned home. A few years later he went back to the same bar in Nevada and, sure enough, in the corner was the memory man, by now past 100 and even more wrinkled. The guy approached the old Native American with the greeting “How.” The memory man looked up and said “Diving header in the six yard box - 113th minute.”