After a weekend when I was asked “What’s the difference between a dirty bus stop and a lobster with breast implants?” – (A) One’s a crusty bus station, the other is a busty crustacean! – Real Mallorca were given a harsh lesson on how to compete at the top level of Spanish football on Sunday, going down 0-1 in front of a crowd of 14,241 to Getafe.
We were out-passed, out-played and out-thought by a tough South Madrid side who showed just why they’re in the top four of La Liga, going for a Champions League place and are still in with a shout in the last 16 of the Europa League, where they’ll face Inter Milan.
A 67th minute header out of nowhere from Serbian midfielder Makisimovic was enough to give the visitors all three points, leaving a huge question mark over our chances of beating the relegation drop with 12 games left (5 home, 7 away) on the calendario. What made this narrow defeat all the more frustrating was the fact that we didn’t have a shot until the 55th minute, hardly troubling David Soria in the Getafe goal all game. As the old adage says, if you don’t have a shot, you don’t score goals.
We knew it was going to be hard when leading scorer Ante Budimir pulled out just before kick off with a muscle strain. We really don’t have any ready replacement for him and we struggled for long periods in attack. With the exception of Take Kubo, we don’t have the necessary quality required to survive in this league and we came up well short on Sunday.
Getafe, as expected, carried out just about every trick in the footballing dark arts manual to leave the Son Moix victorious.
It wasn’t pretty to watch and their style got under our skins towards the end (when mayhem took over our technical area) but it was effective. As I was leaving the ground, I heard one fan talking about, in his opinion, coach Vicente Moreno’s time at the club being over, even mentioning one of our old managers, Hector Cuper (who was at the game and out of work), to be brought back until the end of the season to get us out of trouble – extreme measures for extreme times.
We face Eibar (A), Barcelona (H) and Villareal (A) in the next three weeks; fixtures that don’t fill me with great expectations, and being positive is difficult. Talismanic veteran midfielder Salva Sevilla got involved in a hullabaloo on the bench towards full time, as the red mist descended!
Referee Melero Lopez momentarily lost control and after a flurry of cards, he booked coach Moreno, Cucho Hernandez and Salva Sevilla, who saw a double yellow whammy followed by a red and will now miss at least one game.
We actually started brightly enough without causing Getafe’s defence many problems.
They waited and waited for the right opportunity to come along, and when it did they took full advantage.
Cucho Hernandez did his best ploughing a lone furrow up front but replacing “Budi” was a difficult ask. Dani Rodriguez and Salva Sevilla were eventually overrun by the strength of Getafe in mid field and Lago Junior played in fits and starts. Our best player on the night was goal keeper Manolo Reina. Mallorca huffed and puffed but couldn’t blow the Getafe defensive wall down. Kubo was isolated down the right wing and needs to play more central as once again he was hacked down left, right and centre, not getting a lot of help from the referee. The fans tried to lift the team towards the end with a rendition of “Si, se puede” (yes we can) but it fell on deaf ears. Mallorca had run themselves into the ground against a team who took no prisoners and always had something left in their locker.
SUMMING UP: Fortunately VAR wasn’t needed in this game, which got out of hand towards the end. Mallorca took the bait put out by Getafe as we tried to mix it with them who are renowned past masters at cheating! We controlled long periods of the game, but never looked a threat. We just haven’t got that killer instinct that’s required. Next up it’s Eibar away on Saturday at 13:00 hrs, a must-win game again!
AND FINALLY, an old Italian mafia don is dying and calls his grandson to his bedside.
He says “I wanta you to listen to mea. I wanta you to take mya 45 automatic pistol so you will always remember me.” The grandson replies “But Grandpa, I no likea de guns, howsa about you leave me your Rolex watch instead?” The old don tells him “You listen to me, sonny, you gonna runna my business, you gonna have a beautiful wife, lotsa money, a biga home and maybe a couple of bambinos. “Some day you gonna come home early and finda your wife in bed with another man. “What you gonna do then? Point to your watcha and say times up?”
Watch the highlights of the match in English: click here.
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