Monday night football sees Mallorca away at Girona

It looks likely Mallorca will give more game time to youth team striker Marc Domenech in the final stretch of the season. Mallorca have had a plague of injuries, the latest being Abdon Prats who returned from our 1-0 defeat at Barcelona on crutches. He’s damaged a calf muscle which will see him sidelined until the end of the season. Other absentees expected to play some part on Monday night are Takuma Asano, Robert Navarro and Vedat Muriqi. It’s unlikely any of these three will start but they should get some game time in the second half to get them back to match fitness.

Domenech from Lluchmayor is the only available 100% striking alternative to Larin. If coach Jagoba Arrasate decides to pick an attacking formation, Domenech could be a strong contender to start. Mallorca lie in ninth place alongside Osasuna with five games left to play. Spain’s European club participation next season will see La Liga guaranteed a fifth Champions League spot. Both Barcelona and Real Madrid are already Champions League bound.

One of the Europa League spots is usually reserved for the Copa winner, so as it stands seventh place will book a Europa League ticket and eighth place gets a Conference League place. Should Athletic Club lift the Europa League trophy (the final is played in their San Mames stadium), Spain could unlock an unheralded sixth Champions League position. That would push the seventh and eighth places into the Europa League and the ninth place club get their ticket punched to the Conference League.

It’s chaos in the best way as teams that would normally be involved in a regular low-stakes midtable melee now have a European shout out. The most important aspect in Mallorca’s case is that playing in the Conference means having to overcome a qualifying round in early August.

Monday’s opponents Girona have had a disastrous campaign after being in the Champions League earlier in the season. Like most small teams (and this could be a lesson for Real Mallorca) making the big step, Girona struggled to handle the pressure that came with the new status. After finishing third last season, their owners CFG (City Football Group) dismantled the team, moving out four top players that weren’t replaced by the same quality. In other words the squad who started this season lacked depth and were not ready to compete in multiple competitions.

As for the second half of this season, after Girona went out of the Champions League, their lack of depth led to the inevitable: an injury crisis bringing team morale down as they suffered a series of losses. The hierarchy at Real Mallorca weren’t too happy about goalkeeper Leo Roman telling the media about how unhappy he is at the club and how his situation’s not what it should be due to the management. His virtuoso performance against Barcelona has attracted a lot of attention. His release clause is slightly over 10 million, a real bargain for clubs wanting his signature, especially as he’s just turned 24.

Both Roman and No. 1 choice Dominik Greif are in the lowest salary bracket in the squad and both of them feel under-valued. Both ’keepers are a long way from coming to an agreement with the club but it’s clear (at least) one of them has to go. Last week a local website carried out a poll on which goalkeeper should be our No. 1 choice for the future. Leo Roman received 62% of the vote.

PS What a brilliant game the Copa del Rey final was last Saturday/Sunday. Unfortunately Real Madrid were bad losers. The incidents that took place after the game by team members were an indictment to Spanish football. Is there any other team in world football who act like they are entitled and owed a win every time they play ? And do they ever lose gracefully ? One of the main post match tantrums was from Antonio Rudiger who lost it completely and was seen throwing a full bag of ice at the referee, plus Bellingham and Vazquez were red-carded. Rudiger could be facing a long suspension or will he, like a lot of other Real players, be given a lenient sentence?

AND FINALLY, recently the prime minister of India decreed that there should be a huge national marathon just like in Boston, London and New York. Any resident of India would be entitled to enter. There was huge interest – with six million entries. The organisers said “That’s far too many runners, and spectators will be crushed to death in the crowds.” It was then decided to restrict the race entrants to just the men of India. This time there were four million entries and again the organisers decided that was too many for safety reasons. Eventually the organisers decided that the race will be just for our “admired eunuchs.” This time there were half a million entries, again too many. Finally they decided to limit the number of entries to the first 500 eunuchs to arrive at the start line. The organisers then asked the prime minister “What shall we call this great event?” Quick as a flash the Indian prime minister replied “The India Knackerless 500!”