RCD Mallorca

Ex-Mallorca boss Joaquin Caparros allegedly used a particularly bizarre motivational technique during his time with the club, one of his former players told ESPN Brazil.

Caparros, 60, whose 34-year managerial career last saw him in charge of Granada, once used pornography as a way to get the best out of his players.

That's according to Brazilian centre-back Anderson Conceicao, who spent the 2012-13 season on loan with Mallorca and is now with Major League Soccer side Philadelphia Union.

He told ESPN Brazil (h/t Sport) that the manager utilised the left field tactic ahead of a key game against Athletic Bilbao:

In the team talk ahead of the game Caparros showed us a video with images from a porn film. We were shocked, we didn't understand anything of what we were watching.

The coach wanted to raise our spirit, but we didn't get his idea. He told us that our tension in the game had to be the same as the porn actor.

Whatever the motivation, it didn't work—Mallorca lost the game 1-0 and were subsequently relegated from La Liga.

[ESPN Brazil, h/t Sport]

R.C.D Mallorca is the current La Liga BBVA club of the week for Bleacher Report. The club recently lost to Espanyol and will be facing Malaga at the end of January.

The club has a rich history which goes back to February 27, 1916. It was on this date that R.C.D Mallorca was founded as the Alfonso XIII FBC.

The club's first match was against FC Barcelona at the Buenos Aires stadium one month later. The maiden match for the fledgling club was a disaster since it was left scoreless against a powerful La Blaugrana.

During the period before 1931, King Alfonso XIII of Spain gave the title Real to the club, which became known as Real Sociedad Alfonso XIII and was admitted to the Catalan Football Federation representing the Balearic Islands.

Real Sociedad Alfonso XIII played matches against clubs such as Real Murcia, Colo-Colo, and Meteor from the Czech Republic. The club even played against the Uruguayan National Team during their visit to Mallorca.

In 1931, the name of the club was changed to Club Deportivo Mallorca after the Spanish Republic was proclaimed. During the Spanish Civil War, some of the matches were played but not with teams from mainland Spain.

After the Civil War, R.C.D Mallorca played one of its post-war match against Jerez leaving the latter scoreless. The match was played in the recently dedicated stadium called Es Fortis.

The 1950s were marked with periods between the second, third, and fourth division. R.C.D Mallorca finally received promotion to the first division in 1960.

The 1960s/70s was a time of relegation to the second and third division. The 1980s saw the rise of the midfielders Paco Bonet, Miguel Angel Nadal, and forward Gerry Armstrong. They played a pivotal role in the return of Mallorca to the first division.

The 1990s was marked by a transformation with the club participating in UEFA Tournaments. Mallorca made an appearance in the Copa Del Rey where it lost to FC Barcelona on penalties.

The International Federation of Football History and Statistics named R.C.D Mallorca as the eighth major football club for 1999. It was an honor bestowed to the club on January 5, 2000.

The club under Luis Aragones participated in the UEFA Champions League, Copa Del Rey, and the UEFA Europa Cup. Unfortunately, R.C.D Mallorca entered the relegation phase during the 2012/13 La Liga BBVA season.

Mallorca is currently in 18th place with 17 points, 11 losses, five draws, and four victories. R.C.D Mallorca has 20 goals for and 36 against making the goal differential minus-16.

It remains to be seen whether Mallorca can avoid relegation and return to its golden era.

FC Barcelona and Mallorca will face each other this weekend at the Estadi Iberostar at Palma de Mallorca.

Here's a preview, including news about the two teams and my prediction.

Mallorca

Mallorca is currently in 13th place in the 2012-13 La Liga BBVA table. The team has three wins, two draws and five losses with a goal differential of minus-five.

Mallorca defeated Espanyol, Valencia and Real Sociedad, and they drew with Malaga and Osasuna. Their losses have been to Real Madrid, Getafe, Sevilla FC, Granada and Deportivo La Coruna.

One of the principal players of Mallorca is Giovani Dos Santos. Dos Santos is a Mexican striker who transferred from Tottenham Hotspur to Mallorca last summer.

Uche and Ximo, two of RCD Mallorca's principal players, will not participate in this match. Uche suffered a left knee sprain that will keep him off the field for one to two weeks. Ximo ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus of his right knee.

Ximo is expected to be rested for a long stretch of the season.

All information was obtained from the RCD Mallorca website.

FC Barcelona

FC Barcelona is currently in first place in the table. La Blaugrana has nine wins, one draw and no losses.

Barca has 28 points in La Liga with a goal differential of 20. They are currently undefeated, in La Liga but suffered a loss on Wednesday to Celtic in the UEFA Champions League (UCL).

The loss to Celtic was largely due to Barca's underestimation of their opponents. This weakness has also been seen in some of La Blaugrana's La Liga matches, particularly in the match against Sevilla this past September.

Prediction

La Blaugrana may win, but they'll have to be careful in this match. They cannot depend on Lionel Messi to perform last-minute miracles, although Messi did just that   against Celtic with his last-minute goal.

Barca will play in the 4-3-3 formation, as usual featuring Victor Valdes, Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta in the lineup.

Mallorca will look to take advantage of any weak positioning from Barca, and if counterattacking, Dos Santos may shock Valdes and Barca with a goal in the first half.

Messi will likely score an equalizer and another goal within the second half.

RCD Mallorca 1-2 FC Barcelona

Out of favor Mexican attacker Giovani Dos Santos has officially moved to Spanish outfit Real Mallorca from Tottenham Hotspur for an undisclosed fee, according to Goal.com.

The 23-year-old has been a controversial player in world football. A former student of Barcelona's illustrious youth academy La Masia, Dos Santos has spent the last few seasons out on loan with various European clubs. 

In 2009, he had a brief but successful spell at Championship side Ipswich Town before moving the following season to Turkish powerhouse Galatasaray in 2010.

Last season, Dos Santos was sent on loan to La Liga side Racing Santander and performed impressively, recording five goals and three assists. 

It was perhaps this success that tempted Mallorca to sign Dos Santos. 

What happens from here is a mystery to fans. A superstar and consistent quality performer for his home country Mexico, Giovani Dos Santos never appeared to convince Tottenham of his apparent worth. 

Speculation was that new manager Andre Villas-Boas was keen to keep the midfielder, who is currently recovering from an injury suffered at the Olympics, but the permanent move away from North London shows this not to be the case. 

Real Malorca currently sit sixth in La Liga.

Madrid fans may be stereotypically fickle and quick to get out the pañuelos, but we at Managing Madrid don’t think that there’s any cause for alarm.  Although Mourinho’s first match was underwhelming, disappointing fans that expected to see a crack Madrid squad put the struggling Barralets to the sword, the result is understandable given the circumstances and hardly represents a serious blow to Madrid’s title challenge. 

Due to the late start date of the Spanish league, this match will have little impact on Madrid’s rhythm for the rest of the season, as the players will now join their national teams before returning to action in two weeks.  

Additionally, because of the way that La Liga does tiebreakers, using head-to-head results rather than goal difference, as well as the gulf in class and consistency between the top two and the rest of the league, the two Clásicos will likely decide the winner.  Real Madrid can likely afford to drop two points occasionally as long as it does not become a habit.

While I, along with many pundits, believed that Mallorca’s disastrous financial situation, the loss of several key players in the offseason and their woeful preseason form meant we would see Real Madrid roll over them on the way to three points, Michael Laudrup and his men proved us wrong.  The Danish legend excelled at giant-killing during his time at Getafe and his team was compact and resilient today, relentlessly pressuring us on the ball. 

Mallorca were an excellent team last season, finishing fifth partly due to their extremely strong home form, losing at San Moix only to Real, Barça, and Sevilla. Their strength last year was predicated on their tough defense, which has remained mostly untouched by the summer sales.  That was on display today as Dudu Aouate, the Israeli keeper, made a number of crucial saves to keep his side in it, while Rúben and Nunes, the Mallorca central defensive pair, harried and jockeyed our forwards every step of the way.

As Mourinho said after the match, the problems are a result of one major factor, the extremely limited amount of time that he has been afforded to work with his players so far. 

Because of the World Cup, injuries, and new signings, many players are either unavailable or only very recently became available for selection.  We knew Madrid would not be playing at their best, and in order to win, even under such circumstances, a team must be tidy at the back so as not to concede and take advantage of the chances proffered.

Today, Real Madrid did the first and not the second, which was exceedingly unlucky; the team might have put five or six of the chances away on another day.  Had the referee shown a frankly unarguable red card to Rúben for Denying an Obvious Goal Scoring Opportunity (DOGSO) and given a free kick at the top of the box, which is prime Cristiano Ronaldo territory, the game would have been over in the 25th minute and the media would be talking about Mourinho’s sensational debut. 

The problems with Madrid’s performance were relatively easy to see.

Di María had a poor outing on the left, allowing the Mallorca defenders to heavily mark Ronaldo.  De Guzmán hemmed Marcelo into a defensive role, diminishing our offensive capacity on the left flank.  Mallorca’s high pressing caused us to give the ball away far too often and forced the likes of Canales to come deep to collect the ball.  Our passing was all too often limited to longer vertical passes from deep that often recycled possession too quickly.  Our tempo was slow, which failed to put pressure on Mallorca’s back line, but it also did not have the normal benefit of keeping possession more effectively.

But there were also some notable highlights: Mesut Özil looked electric, Canales, Xabi Alonso, and even Sergio Ramos played some utterly sublime angled-through balls, and Carvalho looked assured in the center of defense. 

Casillas was strong both offensively and defensively, with his distribution efficiently recycling the ball for counterattacks.  Sergio Ramos had an excellent game marauding down the right and Khedira added dynamism and solidity to the midfield in the place of Lass, who offers little offensively. 

There is little reason to panic and great reason to look forward to this young, exciting team coming together in the games to come.

For some, Gregorio Manzano is the best Spanish coach right now. The way he involves the training and tactics side of soccer with his knowledge of psychology to motivate his players renders big results in nearly every team he coaches.

The last proof of the quality of the Andalusian coach was the amazing season Mallorca just had. A team without its key player, Juan Arango, who left to Germany last summer, held a Champions League position for most of the season, only to lose it in the very last game of the year to Sevilla, who scored in the 93rd minute to clinch the fourth place.

Manzano, who already gave Mallorca a great year with the Spanish Cup in 2003, and won the Don Balon Magazine award for the best coach in Spain in 2008, has shown in his over two decades of coaching that he is ready for a bigger team.

The huge economic problems Mallorca is going through at the end of this season, with the president Bartolome Vidal resigning along with part of the board, stopped the negotiation process to renew Manzano's contract, which ended this summer.

Gregorio Manzano had said he was willing to continue in the island for another year, but he wanted a well-earned increase in his salary for a season that would involve Liga, Spanish Cup and Europa League.

Nobody expected the club to be in Europe next season. Manzano has made it happen for the first time in six years, and he deserved a raise.

With the team and the coach going different ways, and as the news of Manzano's resigning was official two days ago, the question is: how good can Manzano be?

With several teams wanting a new coach this summer, the Andalusian could land in a bigger Spanish team, or even outside of the Peninsula. A couple of teams come to mind when it comes to finding a new home for Manzano.

Real Madrid

It seems a bit of a stretch for Manzano to arrive in Madrid, but the truth is, he is as ready as Vicente del Bosque was (and he won La Liga and the Champions League in his last year).

However, the fixation Florentino Perez has with Mourinho will most likely give the job to the Portuguese.

Sevilla

President Del Nido has already admitted he is in talks with Manzano to take charge of the Andalusian team this summer. Even though Sevilla's current coach, Antonio Alvarez, has just won the Spanish Cup, his way of making the team play is not what Sevilla is used to.

AC Milan

Even though Filippo Galli seems to be the best positioned coach to take over at the fashion capital, Manzano could do a better job. He has already admitted the possibility of working outside of Spain, and Milan would certainly be a good place to prove himself.

With the entire summer ahead of him, Gregorio Manzano can sit down and relax for a couple of weeks, while the job offers roll in. He has a rising reputation, and a hidden potential that any big team could benefit from.

Whatever happens, we can expect to see the Andalusian coach in a title-contender team in Europe by August.

It's back to some semblance of order at Real Madrid: the best run of consecutive wins since September, the first away win since October, the best run of consecutive clean sheets since April. This is what Juande Ramos has achieved since he arrived almost exactly one month ago.

Following a widely anticipated loss at Barcelona which was nevertheless tempered by improved, if somewhat over-aggressive, defending, the former Tottenham boss has managed to extract six points from direct competitors (Valencia, Villarreal) and win convincingly away from home for the first time in months.

Before getting too excited about the magnitude of that win, it is important to note that Mallorca are a team on the brink. Already in the relegation zone, they did nothing to suggest that they may be able to dig themselves out of that hole come the summer. Nonetheless, after some of the trouble Real Madrid has had this season to subdue allegedly weaker sides, there is no doubt that improvements have been made on Schuster's tactics and team selections.

Real were seemingly not hampered by being unable to train properly on the last day before flying out to Mallorca following the largest snowfall in Madrid for 30 years. Admittedly, scoring a goal after just two minutes does help, and it is Real's man of the moment, Arjen Robben, who grabbed the initiative, latching onto a quick counter-attacking move and squeezing the ball between the Mallorca 'keeper's legs.

Mallorca had set out five men in the defensive line, but, for all they did on the opener, they may as well have still been thinking about Christmas dinner. And they did not get better as, on the quarter hour, Higuaín jinked past several to lay it off for Raúl to cleverly backheel it into the net.

The Real Madrid captain was also celebrating his 500th league appearance, the sixth man ever to do so, and his goal (his 212th) effectively finished off the locals. It's staggering to think that, in his 15 seasons, Raúl has scored 20% of his side's total goal tally.

Nonetheless, that Casillas had so little work to do means that everyone else did their job properly. Lass looks like he has adjusted to his role and position admirably in just two games and ably assisted Gago in the holding midfielder roles.

Their positioning (why was it so difficult for Schuster to get this right?) meant that Pepe and Cannavaro could do their job in central defence, and even meant that the other two defenders, Heinze and Sergio Ramos, could get forward, adding width to the attack.

It was Sergio Ramos who scored Real's third in an offside position and made Juande Ramos comfortable enough with the eventual outcome, that he could afford to rest Robben and Raúl to give some minutes to Huntelaar (who could have scored a fourth) and youngster Palanca.

The result puts Real Madrid up to second in the standings, still twelve points behind runaway leader Barcelona, ahead of a seemingly simple home tie against last-placed Osasuna next Sunday.

View the original article at the All In White blog.

The first half ended 2-0 in favor of the visitors.

There has been a lot of talk about Messi coming into his own as the best in the world over the last few weeks and lost has been the absolutely incredible play of Arjen Robben with Real Madrid.  

Robben was back at it today, destroying Mallorca along the wight side of the field for the entire first half including a goal in the third minute.

Mallorca started the game with five defenders hoping to curb some of the speed Robben brings to Los Blancos, but the islanders had no answer when Higuain and Robben took off on the counter early in the game.

Robben is definitely not in the CR7 and Messi stratosphere yet, but he has taken over games consistently since Juande Ramos took over as manager and has looked unmarkable—even by four or five defenders.

It was also nice to see Higuain make a spirited comeback from injury.  He set up both first half goals and looked dangerous throughout.

Continuing with our theme of exalting attacking players, this is a special day for El Capitan, Raul, who, in his 500th game, got a goal. While the goal should probably be credited to Higuain for all of his work, Raul was in the right place at the right time to tap it home and deserves all the credit in the world.

On the other side of the pitch, the defense that was put together at the beginning of the season—Ramos, Cannavaro, Pepe, and Heinze—are all finally healthy and have looked great the past two days.

Casillas has been in true Saint Iker form as well, but it has helped to have a competent back four in front of him.  This is not something that could be said for much of the season.

The defense is also benefiting from the arrival of Lassana Diarra, who is fitting right in alongside Gago and doing a great job disrupting the opponents flow in the midfield. I was worried about how quickly he would be able to jump in, but he has, thus far, been much better than advertised.

Thats all for the first half. I will have more after the final whistle.

Everyone has had a moan about the amount of foreigners in English football and not just amongst the players and coaches either.

Foreign owners have come in for tremendous criticism over the last few years but not usually from the fans who’s club suddenly have millions to spend. English clubs are being bought up left, right, and centre by rich foreign businessmen.

Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City, and Aston Villa—to name just a few.

So what can we Brits do?

Well it appears English businessman Paul Davidson has the answer….buy a foreign club, well, 96% of one.

After all, like British players, British clubs are overpriced and usually up to their necks in inflated wages, so why not do what all top British clubs do and look for a bargain on the continent?

The Englishman bought the majority of La Liga’s RCD Mallorca for around £50 million, which is small change compared to the takeovers of Liverpool and the likes.

Now an Englishman has a chance to meddle in a foreign teams affairs and hire and fire at will. Not only that but he can do so in the sun while watching Barcelona, Real Madrid, and the likes visiting the Balearic island.

I envy the man, it beats owning Middlesbrough that is for sure.

So who is next for the taking? Clubs in Spain are struggling financially and are not all as bullet proof as the big two. Just ask Valencia, who are on the verge of not existing at all.

It would be great to see more British owners abroad, restoring balance to the football scales.

Is anyone with me?

Anyway, that leaves just one more important question…

Has anyone told Ken Bates that Valencia are available for a pound?