After a week when the BBC have gone woke mad and commissioned a new TV series about a bunch of gender-confused herbs – it’s called “As Thyme Goes Bi”! – Real Mallorca is working to strengthen its squad for next season and one of the names on the table is Barcelona’s 22-year-old midfielder Pablo Torre. The player would like to stay at the newly reformed Spotify Camp Nou stadium and be part of Hansi Flick’s squad but any playing time would be extremely limited, with the impending signing of Nico Williams from Athletic Club.
Talks between Barcelona and Mallorca are allegedly taking place although it remains to be seen if he’ll come on loan or on a permanent deal. The loan scenario has been considered but Barcelona haven’t ruled out a permanent buy-back clause. In other words, the Catalan giants don’t want to lose control of him entirely. Torre has just returned from playing for the Spanish Under 21s in the European Championships in Slovakia. He joined Barcelona from his home team Racing Santander in 2022 as one of the most promising young players in Spanish football.
If this guy signs for Real Mallorca it’s a dream come true for us Mallorquinistas. Our director of football Pablo Ortells is on an all-out offensive to get his signature. Naturally when a player like Torre comes on the market, there’s a cornucopia of clubs from all over Europe’s top leagues sniffing about. According to Catalan sports website Jijantes, Mallorca is one of the best positioned to secure his services. One local journalist reacted to the news by saying “Torre would be a great signing and would bring quality and a final pass in the final third, something we don’t have too much of.”
Signing news
In other signing news, the financial gap between Mallorca’s offer and the salary expectations of our two goalkeepers, Dominik Greif and Leo Roman, remain astronomical. The club has offered three more years plus another optional one for Greif, and four fixed years plus another optional for Roman because of his age.
Although both goalkeepers seem light years away from any offer they’ve been given by the club, Leo Roman’s transfer fee would be around 10 million euros which is a lot for a goalkeeper who only started 12 games last season. His options for a Spanish club seem remote and a move abroad looks his only option.
Ortells met Greif’s representatives in Bratislava two weeks ago and offered a contract agreement to retain him in the face of the market threats but both goalkeepers’ agents haven’t responded as yet.
At the end of last season, coach Arrasate repeated several times that the club had to have a good Summer transfer window. There’s precious little money outside the top three in La Liga so we can expect a long drawn out few weeks until the window shuts on September 1.
The mantra that reigns at Son Moix as in most of the other clubs is: before entering, let others leave. Almeria, who just missed out on promotion to La Liga recently, are reportedly putting most of their first team players on the transfer list, several of whom are of interest to Mallorca.
One player who has been attracting a lot of attention at the Under 21s competition is 23-year-old Romanian striker Louis Munteanu from Cluj-Napoca, who scored 25 goals in 41 games in the Romanian league. Once again though, his price tag of 10 million euros is a figure that seems too high for us. Mallorca will spend five days in Austria where they’ll play Italian side Udinense on July 27. Then newly-demoted (for financial irregularities) French side Olympique Lyonnais on the 30th and German team Werder Bremen on July 31.
City of Palma Cup
Real Mallorca will play newly-promoted Hamburg SV in the 47th edition of the City of Palma Cup on August 9 at the Son Moix. The bulk of our pre-season this Summer will take place on the island. The third weekend of August will see the big kick off in La Liga, hopefully most Mallorquinistas will have purchased their season tickets by then. They should go on sale in a few days.
AND FINALLY, levels of stress. You pick up a hitch-hiker, a beautiful girl. Suddenly she faints inside your car and you take her to hospital – now that’s stressful. At the hospital they say she’s pregnant and congratulate you on the fact that you’re going to be a dad. You say you are not the father but the girl says you are – very stressful. You request a DNA test to prove you are not the father. After the tests are completed, the doctor says that you are infertile and probably have been since birth. You are extremely stressed but relieved. On your way home you think about your three kids – now that’s STRESS!