| Mallorca (0) | Valencia (1) |
| Gabriel Paulista 4′ |
As the ball bobbled out from the Mallorca penalty box, Gabriel Paulista pounced like a lion who had been on a meat-free diet for the past 4 months. Impossible, you’d think.
But oh, how he feasted as he snapped in ever so ferociously from 30 metres out, with just the right amount of outside boot contact for the ball to swivel and cannon against the underside of the crossbar and in. The fatal blow initiated by Paulista’s right leg, the very limb beset by muscle issues for week upon vexing week.
The celebrations were primal for the pride of the Valencia pack, our beating heart. Just 4 minutes in, the appetite of Los Che fans was well and truly whet.
Yet the rest of the game was more famine than feast against the 16th-placed home team, as the Visit Mallorca Stadium proved more inhospitable than the tourism-motivated name suggested. After all, the Bats have only won in 1 of the last 6 visits to the sunny island, with the last win coming 11 years ago.
Jose Bordalas, undefeated against Mallorca in his 10 games against them throughout his career, might have just proved the lucky charm. With 23 shots and 14 corners for our opponents, fortune must have favoured us ever so slightly, especially with their 1.94m, in-form striker Vedat Muriqi lurking in our 6-yard box.
Pre-match talk had swirled about Valencia’s rearguard, the 2nd leakiest in the division. Bordalas sought to fix that with 3 central defenders, perhaps due to Paulista’s return. Despite the clean sheet, the stats and Takefusa Kubo’s repeated exploits in the half space suggest that the 3-4-3 wingback approach cannot quite cut it.
There wasn’t much to shout about going forward as well. Our attacks were disjoint, often falling flat at the feet of the labouring Maxi Gomez. Instead, in a recurring theme this season, we depended on individual sparks provided by Yunus Musah and Bryan Gil. Yet neither burned with the guile and incision of the rested Goncalo Guedes.
Hopefully it is the performance of a changed team which saw four replacements come in, likely with an eye on the upcoming Copa semi to come. We smashed, and we grabbed a sorely needed win. Let’s take that winning form back to the Mestalla against Bilbao in midweek. Paulista can’t wait to sink his teeth in, surely!
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