Real Madrid travel to the isle of Mallorca to take on one of the teams most jinxed in the Spanish giants’ history. The fact is that modest Mallorca always seem to make life difficult for Madrid, and this season they have lost against Mallorca twice already in the King’s cup. The league though is a different kettle of fish and the La Liga leaders will be looking to extend their six point gap over second placed Villarreal in this game.
Mallorca are currently ninth in the table and five points from a UEFA cup place. Due to their fine run of form recently, where they have lost just once in the last twelve matches, and have put seven points in the way of the relegation zone. But of these twelve matches, seven of them ended in draws, and they have only succeeded in winning four, although they had a magnificent seven goal to one victory over Recreativo de Huelva a couple of weeks ago that really helped morale. Coach Gregorio Manzano is not your average trainer. Before getting into football he was a psychiatrist, but this has really helped him get the best out of his players.
In team news, Real Madrid were happy to announce that Portuguese defender Pepe is back to full fitness and will start this match. That means coach Bernd Schuster will be able to put Sergio Ramos at right back and Cannavaro in the centre of defense with Pepe, and Argentinean Heinze at left back. This is the German coach’s favorite defensive formation, and the truth is they have conceded very few goals this season when playing together. Van Nistelrooy is still out after his surgery, as is Christoph Metzelder. The only other injury is to second goalkeeper Dudek, who suffered a knock on an ankle during training. This won’t probably effect the game as he hasn’t actually played practically any minutes and will more than likely leave at the end of this season.
As for Mallorca, Gregorio is able to count on his ideal starting eleven, who last weekend walked all over Valencia at the Mestalla stadium by winning three goals to nil. It is obvious that Mallorca are in great form and won’t want it to stop here, but with Madrid’s defense one of the best in the league the hosts will find it extremely difficult to score. I’m going to go for a draw here, mainly because Mallorca never seem to lay down and die when they take on Real Madrid like so many other teams do in the league.
Prediction: Draw (1-1)