R.c.d. Mallorca - Valencia C. F. met on 21 April at Son Moix in the 33rd jornada of LaLiga EA Sports, with kickoff set for 19:00 and permanence on the line. The game came with Mallorca missing Raíllo, Mateo Joseph and Luvumbo, while Valencia arrived without central defenders.
That forced Corberán to reshuffle his back line and use Pepelu alongside César Tárrega in the center of defense, while also leaning on the speed of Diego López, Ramazani, Beltrán and Sadiq for a high press. Diego López had not started a Liga match in 13 games before this one, and his last league start came on 10 January against Elche.
Mallorca handed Leo Román the start behind Maffeo, Valjent, Mascarell, Mojica, Samú Costa, Morlanes, Pablo Torre, Darder, Asano and Muriqi. Valencia went with Dimitrievski; Thierry, Pepelu, Tárrega, Gayà; Guido Rodríguez, Ugrinic; Diego López, Ramazani, Sadiq and Beltrán. The matchup set up one of the clearest contrasts in the league: Muriqi entered as Mallorca’s main scoring threat, with 21 goals and one assist, while Hugo Duro stood as Valencia’s second-top scorer with nine goals.
Muriqi’s numbers were the reason Mallorca could not hide behind the standings. He had scored 21 goals in 30 LaLiga 2025/26 matches, and that total was already the second-highest by a Mallorca player in a LaLiga season in the 21st century, behind only Dani Güiza’s 27 in 2007/08. Valencia, meanwhile, tried to find width through a side that had put 132 crosses into the box in LaLiga 2025/26 through Luis Rioja, while Álex Berenguer had reached 172, the highest total among the players mentioned.
Demichelis put it bluntly, saying Valencia had run into trouble in recent matches without really deserving it. The comparison with Héctor Cúper’s 1997 start, when Mallorca opened with 5P, 3V, 2E and 11 points in five matches, underlined how quickly a good spell can change the mood around a team. For both clubs, this was less about style than survival, and the next results will say whether Son Moix marked a turn or just another tense stop in a season already narrowed to the basics.
