Eduardo Colom Palma

Palm

Updated Monday, February 5, 2024-21:59

  • Live Mallorca - Real Sociedad (9:00 p.m.)

  • Copa del Rey Semifinals

Sergio Campoy

is 48 years old and has Mallorcanism in his veins. He belongs to the club of vermillion fans who have seen his team travel through the Olympus of football: he has been in the three Copa del Rey finals that RCD

Mallorca

has played in 107 years of history. He was at the Bernabéu in 1991, when they were "a clear minority in the stands" and, despite losing to

Atlético de Madrid

, they sowed "the seed of everything that would come later." He was in Valencia in 1998, suffering against Barça. And he was, of course, at the Martínez Valero in Elche in 2003, in that dream final, the third, the charm, the epic of all epics for the club of his life.

20 years (and a half) have passed since that milestone and Campoy, like all Mallorcanism, cannot help but feel the vertigo today at having another final close at hand, with the feverish look of nostalgia, as if twenty years were Gardel's nothingness. "The excitement is maximum," he explains as he counts the hours until the match against Real Sociedad starts. "Let's keep dreaming, the new generations have not experienced the joy of playing in a final and I see in their eyes the nerves and excitement that I enjoyed in the past," he says, thinking of his children.

Alejandro

, his eldest son, is 18 years old and has never seen Mallorca in those matches. "La Real is a great team but it is possible to surprise, why not? This is football."

Talking about a Cup final is not just anything in Mallorca. The collective memory of the island has that legendary Elche title etched in fire, when they defeated

Recreativo de Huelva 3-0

in a final surrounded by mysticism, a feat of a club that in 2017 was relegated to Second B and that now returns to compete in the elite.

"The road to that final had a lot of merit," remembers

Mateu Alemany

, president of the club between 2000 and 2005 and until recently football director of FC Barcelona. "We eliminate the best of the moment." In the quarterfinals against Madrid galactico and in the semis against Superdépor, champions of the Champions League and the League respectively. "That gave it a very high value," claims the former manager. Thus came the third final in twelve years. But that one wasn't like the others. "We were not going to a party as troupes, we were going with the obligation and pressure to win it, as favorites," details Alemany, who admits that not taking advantage of it would have been a failure.

The players, in full celebration.EFE

"Mallorca was no longer a small team that miraculously sneaks into a final." It was a club that had just played in the Champions League and was facing a historic opportunity to place a great trophy in its showcases.

That generated excitement but also a certain "suffering" and a collective state of anxiety, the fuel for 1,5,000

fans to travel to Elche

. The shipping companies couldn't cope and getting there was quite an odyssey. "It is still the largest mobilization in the history of a Balearic sports club," recalls an Alemany, still excited when remembering that night. "Some boats arrived late, the Police had to escort us, it was brutal," added

Sebastià Oliver

, president of Moviment Mallorquinista, a group that brings together more than 7,000 fans, on the phone.

But nothing about that distant night is understood without a proper name. "It was the final of

Samuel Etóo

," says

Tolo Ramón

, coach and analyst of Mallorca. The Cameroonian, whom Alemany considered "the best striker in Europe" at the time, was playing with his team in the Confederations Cup in France. His participation in the final was unclear and normatively complex. But the president unblocked the situation and released the player. "He was 40% of the team's potential, he came on a private plane and at the end of the game he left, he couldn't stay for the entire celebration," says Alemany.

Between one flight and another, he scored two of the three goals in the final and forced a penalty, bringing the club to ecstasy where mentioning his name is like saying a spell that automatically awakens pride. To this day, a large mural with his face adorns the facade of the stadium.

The captain, raising the Cup.GETTY

"We are very excited about this Cup," explains

Nacho Bonnín

, a tireless member of Mallorca and another of those who made the pilgrimage to Elche two decades ago. "The Girona game lit the fuse, everything that had to go well went perfectly." Now they see a disparate tie but trust in the strength of Son Moix. "We hope we have a good tie and go to Seville."

For Ramón, "older" Mallorcanism wants a final against Atlético de Madrid "and a repeat of the mythical final from 33 years ago, now on neutral territory," in Seville. The algorithm will say that Real Sociedad, sixth in the League and one of the best teams in Europe, plays today in the Cup against the fifteenth placed team. However, in the territory of the intangible, the San Sebastian team faces a club that reigned in that competition. And that he conspires and dances under Etóo's mural to invoke the tornado of history.