Real Mallorca 1 - Villarreal 1
Real Mallorca’s fight for survival remains wide open after they drew 1-1 against third top Villareal in a keenly contested encounter played out on a sunny Sunday afternoon in front of 19,663 spectators.
This was a heroic point for Mallorca who played some great football but they couldn’t overcome Villareal who, with nothing to play for, looked to have taken their foot off the gas. Nothing much happened in the first half hour then in the 31st minute a harsh hand-ball decision saw Villareal’s Ayoze Perez despatch the subsequent penalty into the bottom corner of the net, despite Mallorca’s keeper Leo Roman getting a strong right hand to the ball.
In first half added-on time, Mallorca went level. The Villareal goalkeeper Arnau Tenas made a hash of a routine catch, allowing Muriqi to slide the ball into an empty net. The big Kosovan striker now has 22 goals, two behind Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappe who’s out injured.
In the second half Mallorca took the initiative as they pushed for a potentially decisive second goal. The visiting keeper made amends for his first-half howler with a string of great saves from Pablo Torre, Muriqi, Samu Costa and the effervescent Luvumbo. Near the end, with Mallorca unfortunate not to get all three points, Samu Costa got a silly yellow card for trying to prevent a Villareal player from taking a throw-in. Costa will miss Wednesday night’s away game in Madrid against Getafe. This result moves Mallorca up three places in the table to 13th with a two-point gap between themselves and the bottom three, so the uneasy relegation fears persist.
SUMMING UP: Against one of La Liga’s stronger teams, Mallorca showed fight, personality and enough football to win. Yet with the relegation battle so tight, draws no longer feel safe. Every missed chance carries extra weight now. Mallorca remain dangerously close to the bottom three and while the performance offered hope, the table still offers anxiety. But there are positives for us Mallorquinistas to hold on to. The team didn’t collapse after conceding and the crowd stayed behind them. Muriqi once again continues to look like a player determined to drag the club to safety by sheer willpower. The feeling leaving Son Moix was clear: Mallorca are alive, competitive and fighting but the survival battle is likely to go on right to the end in three games’ time.