Barcelona-Mallorca

By: Jeremy | November 6th, 2009

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Its that time of the season where we face Barcelona, which is typically the time most teams take a step back and allow some others to make up three points on them. Will we be any different this year?

Lets look at the standings:
Barcelona 9 23 7 2 0 24 5
Real Madrid 9 22 7 1 1 23 5
Sevilla 9 19 6 1 2 16 5
Valencia 9 18 5 3 1 16 7
Mallorca 9 17 5 2 2 16 9

Yes that is us in 5th. Despite all the financial bs right down to Jankovics final 50 grand they are trying to hit us up for, this team has meshed early and has played well under Manzano, a coach that is on all the big clubs radar. As fast as the team has finished the past two years, the good start to this year could mean a lot of happiness in Palma come June. Its been almost ten years since our CL appearance. Why cant we get back?

MB3

If I hated Barca last year as I did the year before that and the year before that etc, I can hate them even more now that I dont have to root for Samuel Etoo by watching them play. As much as I hate Inter, Id rather watch him play in Italy then another team in Spain, especially Barca.

When it comes time to analyze my small team versus the big bad team from Barca, I am glad that I dont root for such a club whose millions just seem to buy what they need and if a transfer flops, the financial hit is easily absorbed and a new player is in his place. Its like rooting for the NY Yankees. How boring. After seeing what Real Madrid did in the offseason with Kaka and CR, two players I really like, I am about hating them as much as Barca. Part of me would love to see a salary cap but that is just not reality and takes away from the history of the league.

But lets be objective and push the hatred and small club v. big club attitudes aside and look at two teams with new looks and with what seems like good moves by management to improve over last years teams in Barcas case or in our case to scramble to replace losses we didnt want but couldnt afford to keep.

Give Barca some credit. They are coming off the best year possible by a team for the most part and they deal Etoo plus a lot of cash for Ibra. If they get knocked out in the CL or dont win La Liga, there will be lots of question marks about this deal. If they do nothing, they are looked at as not keeping up with Madrid or other teams that really spent or made changes. Championship teams make moves like this even if it does not always work out and with Ibra currently leading La Liga in scoring and Barca undefeated, it seems to be working out. The bad thing about being a big team is your season is typically defined by 3-5 matches over the course of the year against other big spending teams. Otherwise they are just going through the motions hoping they dont underperform or that some small team goes nuts trying to prove they belong on the same field and beats them. Our season is defined week to week.

Despite this changes, dont worry Barca still has so much talent that many players who cant get on the field would be stars on smaller La Liga clubs.

How is this for a lineup this weekend as they may choose to rest some guys:

Valdes, Alves, Pique, Chygrynskiy, Abidal, Toure, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro, Ibrahimovic, Henry

That is not even counting Puyol, Alves and Messi in case they need some subs.
What about Marquez and Keita? Sheesh. After spending a cold midweek in Russia playing Rubin Karzan in the CL and not doing as well as expected, who knows what lineup we will see from them. It may be to our advantage that they are returning from a cold mid week game and have some tough games after the break which might cause them to let off the throttle a bit. We may see a weaker lineup then they might normally send out, especially since there is a good chance Messi wont play. It may be that the pressure of the media questioning how good they are will cause them to take out the past couple of games not being impressive on us in the Camp Nou.

Enough about Barca. They are what they are and arguably better then last years great team. Lets instead see if we can somehow find some points in this game.

Mallorca has to feel they can play with these guys on any occasion, scheduling advantages or not. We should have beaten them in the Copa semis last year and Barca, despite what they might say, gives us more then just a glancing look when the game comes up on the schedule. I am sure they remember 07-08 when we beat them on their field with our best team in years.
Our speed can run with theirs and Valeros return only adds to that strength.

With Mallorca winning all their games at home against similarly situated teams and managing to take points against Atletico and Villarreal on the road, this is a game that we can challenge for points. The fans are supposedly traveling for this game as it is short hop across the Med. The only negative about having for the most part inferior talent is that bad games, especially on the road, can happen as witnessed by our meltdown against Gijon. A bad game for Barca is what is needed for most small teams to have a chance against them in their stadium. Manzano will have a strategy and the players will find a way to give it their all knowing a real move in the standings is in store.

With some health issues and Aduriz not likely to play, the lineup could look something like this:
Aouate, Ayoze, Ruben, Nunes, Mattioni, Valero, Suarez, Alvarez, Castro, Webo, Victor.

Mattioni has been a revelation in defense and with Ramis back from suspension there will be a little extra depth at the back. While Webo did score the goal in last weeks win, the team is so much better with Aduriz and Valero pushing the pace of the game and keeping the team calm. We lost so many guys again in the offseason but the return of Valero seems to have trumped it all and we are not even missing Arango in the slightest. The overall mood of the team has to be good and its that attitude that leads to the kind of results we want.

We are over achieving being in 5th but in doing this have shown we are more talented then what was expected to be a relegation battle for us. The bottom line is that talent typically wins games. While one team can have a great day or be tired and looking past an lesser opponent, those are abberrations. Barca knows it needs a result to silence some idiot critics and they will get up for a Mallorca team that always seems to be confident when playing them. Will the team that thrashed Zaragoza show up for them? Will our team quit like they did against Gijon or will they fight for a point with nine men like they did against Atletico?

While I dont rule out a surprise result, I cant see getting points on the road against Barca without Aduriz. He is the key calm finisher that is needed for us in a game like this. They need an impressive win and while a draw could happen, that is being a bit of a homer, which I clearly am. However, I will follow this game with a little more interest because we have a team worth watching and you never know.

Prediction
Barcelona 2-1 Mallorca

Prediction Record to date:
5-4