This was certainly a game of two halves played on a very hot and sticky night in front of a pretty healthy attendance of 7,500. That in itself was much better as we usually average 3-4,000 for this pre-season fixture. Mallorca won the first half with coach Vicente Moreno selecting what could be our initial XI for Saturday’s game against Eibar.
New Ghanaian left back Lumor started, as did the Real Madrid academy player Aleix Febus, who had a brilliant home debut and won the man of the match award.
Mallorca’s opener in the 4th minute was a scrappy affair. Croatian striker Ante Budimir poked home a loose ball to give him his fourth pre-season goal.
After our opener, Dani Rodriguez and Lago Junior hit the post twice in ten seconds. We missed another couple of half-chances but looked comfortable at the break. In the second half, Levante brought on their big guns and two goals in seven minutes sealed our fate. Moreno also rang the changes, bringing in new Macedonian right-sided midfielder/winger Trajkovski, who had a couple of shots but didn’t see a lot of the ball.
Sergio Leon (who was taking time off from directing his latest spaghetti western !), equalised in the 49th minute and Real Madrid striking loanee Borja Mayoral, with a spectacular flying header, made it two soon after. New Serbian defender Sedlar joined Xisco Campos at the heart of the defence but Campos, now 37, doesn’t look good enough for this level of football.
We have to learn in La Liga to keep the back door firmly shut against opportunist attackers. With time running out, Mallorca won a corner down the right. Salva Sevilla took it, and was the only player on the pitch to complete the whole 94 minutes, even at the veteran age of 35!
Our ‘keeper Miguel Parera came up for a “last chance saloon” corner but it was to no avail as Levante ran out 1-2 winners. They showed what clinical finishing is all about in La Liga – they only had two chances and scored with both of them.
Mallorca must have learned that if you lower your guard you get punished and so it was. The City of Palma Cup travelled with Levante back to Valencia, now let’s see if in the league on Saturday at 8 o’clock against Eibar the points stay in Son Moix.
Last August the league authorities in Madrid stated that because of excessive heat and humidity, no top flight games in Spain would be played before 9 pm until October. Fast forward 12 months and that idea seems to have been dropped. Because of there (for the moment) being no Monday night games, the fixture list has been altered.
As far as we’re concerned our home game against Real Sociedad on Sunday August 25 is scheduled for a 5 pm kick off. It’s going to be sweltering at that time of day. The next home game after that against At. Bilbao was originally set for Sunday September 15 at 14:00 – even worse! That match has now been rearranged for Friday night September 13 at 9 pm – which is more like it.
Saturday night’s game was supposed to be shown live on local TV station IB3 but General Manager, Maheta Molango, vetoed the live broadcast.
The reason given was that the TV company had shown coach Vicente Moreno having a rant at his players in Marbella last week for their lackadaisical attitude in training. Filming the incident was bad enough but then to put subtitles underneath didn’t go down well with the club so they pulled the plug.
Several thousand potential new season ticket holders were disappointed last week when the “sold out” sign went up on Thursday. These new fans, many of whom stopped attending when we plummeted to the depth of Segunda B two years ago, renewed their faith for the club but have been disappointed.
The sale of season tickets reached 16,125, most of these to loyal supporters who’ve stuck by the club through times of adversity. The club have quite rightly given them preferential treatment as well as giving them a chance to buy another ticket for a family member or friend at a reduced rate.
They were also given the chance to change their seats after some parts of the Sol Alta were closed for the past few seasons. Some of these aggrieved fans have taken to social media venting their displeasure when in fact they’ve only themselves to blame. If they’d stuck with the team like the rest of us when we were relegated, they would also have had priority.
The club is rightly worried that a number of these fans (whom I call Johnnie come latelies) may not bother to come to games against lesser teams in La Liga, making the ground look empty. That image doesn’t look good on TV and the club can be penalised by La Liga.
PS My spies tell me Swedish man of many clubs, John Guidetti, was seen in Palma over the weekend with his family having a break from La Liga side Alaves. Could he be a possible new signing?
AND FINALLY, a husband arrives home from work early and he hears loud groans coming from the upstairs bedroom. He dashes upstairs and finds his wife on the bed completely naked and breathing heavily.
“Oh my god, what’s the matter ?” he asks, she tells him “I think I’m having a heart attack.” The husband runs back downstairs to ring an ambulance. While he’s on the phone, his son comes running up to him sobbing.
“What’s the matter son? Is it because your Mum isn’t very well?” The little lad replies “No, Dad, Uncle Tony has just frightened me, he ran into my bedroom with no clothes on and hid in my wardrobe.”
The husband goes back upstairs in a rage and goes to the wardrobe to confront Uncle Tony. “You bas***d, my own brother, how could you? My wife is lying in bed there having a heart attack and you’re running around the house with no clothes on frightening the kids!”
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