Mallorca-Athletic Bilbao

By: Jeremy | May 3rd, 2008

One thing I remember about my summers in Spain MANY years ago while in college was travelling through Basque country. This was a time when Basque Seperatists were a little more active and we would ride the trains hoping for none of them to get blown up(sorry no Clinton sniper stories). My knowledge of the history of the area as well as the Athletic soccer team was minimal. As I educated myself and spent time there and got to interact with the people, I really found them to be quite proud of their heritage and very nice. I love European culture and wish I could meet more people outside of my own country.

As I learned more about the local teams years later, I was amazed to find out that Athletic has been in La Liga without being relegated for as long as anyone and they manage to survive only using players with Basque heritage. How impressive is that in todays modern world of big time football? They are like my team Mallorca in that recent years they have fought and survived some serious relegation battles. The question is how long can they stay in La Liga with their homegrown policy and will they change it. I am big on certain traditions whether it be the Citadel staying all male or Athletic only using home grown players, but the reality of the world is that traditions are often lost and forcibly destroyed by outside forces and realities.

But enough of the history and reminicising BS as Mallorca heads to the Basque region to take on Athletic and instead of both teams facing relegation scares, they both feel they have an outside chance at a European place with four games left. One of them will likely lose their faint European hopes after this weekends matches.

Mallorca got a big lift today with seventh place Deportivo losing to Zaragoza so they stay stuck on 49 points. Almeria is on 48 and Mallorca 47. Even Manzano is talking up the European chances in his weekly local press conference. He is so confident he isnt using the word Intertoto, but instead thinks 6th place is possible. This requires us to not only pass three teams above but to make up 5 points on Sevilla who is still a pretty decent team. I think Mallorca has a better chance of catching Racing who is on 53 points. If Sevilla is 5th, maybe we can slide into 6th but Ill take 7th all day.

Manzano probably spoke up to deflect rumors of his leaving and taking Guiza, Arango, and Ibagaza to Valencia. Valencia might think they are too good for Manzano, but they need a good coach and some transfers and any one of these three players would start for Valencia. Manzano is as good as any coach they will find but I know the big clubs need the big names when at all possible. Manzano might be saying he hasnt been contacted and that he is focusing on getting Mallorca into Europe, but things change real quick when results do or dont go your way. Ask Kobe Bryant. In other words we need to just play the games and see what happens in the offseason. I will be very upset if we lose a solid foundation of players and our great manager, even if the team has underperformed in my opinion this year. Manzano has shown he can buy the right players in Mallorca and I would hate to see a solid foundation destroyed, but if this team makes Europe, everyone might not be so ready to leave.

Now to the match. Athletic has won its last three home games and this is going to be a tough road match for Mallorca. Mallorca is on good form and should have everyone available including Ibagaza and Ramis, key players who have been missing recently. The thing I enjoy about La Liga is that even in late season matches that could determine a lot, the teams still play wide open football and try to score, even if it takes awhile to warm up. Look for the tactics that Mallorca used last week against Racing to work again this week. The first half they will play defensive with lots of long down field passes in order to neutralize Athletics offense. If that is successful, they will come out more aggressive in the second half and get a couple of goals.

With Depors loss, Mallorca has to be more fired up for this match and even though Athletic has been on good home form recently, Mallorca can steal the points. Europe is not out of the question and with four weeks left, this weeks results will only tighten things even more.

This will be a great game for the fans in the stands. I expect Guiza to have a say regarding the final result.

Prediction
Athletic 2-2 Mallorca