By Monro Bryce
AFTER a week when “twerking” and “selfie” are new additions to the dictionary – “future” and “optimism” have been removed ! – Real Mallorca play league leaders Alcorcon from Madrid tonight at 6 pm in the Son Moix.
Three weeks into the second division season and for the first time in their history Alcorcon sit at the top of Liga Adelante. Considering their off-season turmoil, it’s a remarkable start. Add to that the fact that they’ve signed Dani Pacheco from Liverpool and they hammered La Liga neighbours Getafe 6-1 in a friendly on Tuesday, the Madrid outfit are going to be a hard nut to crack tonight.
Mallorca have had a disastrous start to the season and find themselves bottom of the league with nul points. There is of course a long, long way to go with a further 39 matches to be played and with the acquisition of former Granada and Watford player Alex Geijo on Monday, goals should be on the way.
Coach Oltra will be forced into making changes tonight with Aouate away on World Cup qualifying duty with Israel and Agus and Ximo suspended. Pedro Geromel who’s now staying at Mallorca until at least January is expected to be a regular at centre back in a defence that’s already leaked 11 goals.
Mallorca will play Alcorcon again on Tuesday night at 9.30 this time in the Copa del Rey.
The game will be in the Son Moix and unlike later rounds will be a one-legged encounter. Just how the local fans will react to our poor start (which they mostly blame on our chief shareholder/director of football, Lorenzo Serra Ferrer) will be interesting to see tonight. A win would of course go a long way to bringing peace to the Son Moix. We have to kick start our season and tonight is a golden opportunity to do just that.
MONEY WOES ON THE HORIZON
Kettering Town from the Southern League Division One (the eighth tier of English football) have been issued with a winding up order, due to debts of around £58,000. The 141-year-old club who were managed by Paul Gascoigne in 2005 (he was sacked after just eight games) have a fantastic history in the FA cup over the years but sadly “The Poppies” now look to be doomed. That’s one side of football nowadays, the other side was the ridiculous price Real Madrid paid for Gareth Bale, and it’s estimated he gets £4,000 an hour. It’s not the player’s fault. Careers are short and Bale can’t be blamed for setting himself up for life, and making his mum and dad multi-millionaires overnight.
MULTI-NATIONAL
Football is slipping away from its roots; a game populated not by clubs but by multinational conglomerates. Most coaches, players and chairmen go along with the old adage that the fans are the lifeblood of the club. But no matter how much they pretend to go along with the punters shaking them with one hand whilst the other is laid out flat to be filled with supporters’ hard-earned wonga.
Those fans who are so important are always being asked to juggle travel plans as games are rescheduled for TV.
We all know it’s the big bucks that keep the whole FALSE economy sloshing along from one vulgarity to the next. The day when it all goes tits up is not far away. With the “foreign imports” continuing to prop up the English premiership the recent transfer window hit a record £600 million. Champions Man. Utd. Made more than £60 million last year. They also had to release £50 million in interest repayments to service the club’s £300 million debts.
Like the housing market and the economic meltdown, football’s high living decadence can’t last forever. There’s been dire consequences in Scotland and also here in Spain and when the bottom eventually and inevitably falls out of the market in England, they’ll see the cost of excess.
AND FINALLY, here’s five of the best look-alikes for Arsenal’s new signing Mesut Ozil : (5) Buster Keaton, (4) A puffer fish, (3) Sid the Sloth (from Ice Age), (2) Gollum (from Lord of the Rings) and (1) Avatars’ Jake Sully.