I begin this article, likely my last of FM22, with a tenuous link between an Egyptian Newgen and two Ancient Egyptian Deities.
The first link is clear - they are both of Egyptian origin. The second is where some creative leap is required: Mostafa Gabr has been trained to play on the wing - Bennu is the ancient Egyptian deity symbolised in the form of a grey heron - a winged animal. The third link is where things begin to tie together as Bennu was a symbol of rebirth, closely associated with Osiris who was the god of resurrection among many other things (and the father of Horus, the falcon headed but I’ll not try and stretch a further link in here).
In the summary of my last season, I mentioned finding the key in Gio Reyna. One player who was also vital in the successes of that campaign was loaned wideman Pedro Camara. His contribution of 13 goals and 11 assists from his Winger-Attack role was undeniably so crucial to the way the team played.
Alas, loans can never truly be relied on, and Pedro Camara returned to his parent club (Man UFC) before being sold on to Newcastle United.
A replacement was needed but with little of great interest on the transfer market, I turned to a player who had thus far failed to really meet expectations since his signing. I didn’t initially have him marked down for a wide playing role but he could just fit the bill. Could it be time for a rebirth for Mostafa Gabr? (Tenuous link justified)
Pedro Camara was a pretty good winger for me at the level Mallorca were at. He was fast enough, could dribble and cross. While his finishing attribute was hardly anything to write home about, his other attributes meant that he was usually in the right place at the right time to have a decent chance at goal. Not to mention the loan deal we had him on was an absolute steal with £2.9k per week wages!
In my eighth season he finished with 13 goals and 11 assists in 39(4 apperances across all competitions.
I signed Mostafa Gabr in my sixth season as a 19-year-old with lots of promise. Initially I imagine that he would slot into a central midfield role for me but he just never seemed to get going in that position. 6 goals and 2 assists in his 16 appearances in Season Six sounds good but was heavily inflated by early fixtures against lower league opposition in the Spanish Cup. In the Seventh Season it was a return of 2 goals and 3 assists in 38 appearances. By January of the Eighth Season he had 3 goals and 3 assists in 16 appearances but was more often than not a substitute for me.
I allowed Gabr to leave on a sixth month loan to Feyenoord where he amassed 8 goals and 5 assists in 21 appearances as he recorded a 7.4 average rating while helping them to a Europa Conference League Final victory.
As pre-season for Season Nine came round, I had a choice to make with regards to replacing Pedro Camara. So, I turned to Mostafa Gabr. Having all the right attributes in the right places I decided he should be given one last go at it - and he repaid my faith in abundance.
Gabr took to his new role really well as he finished the season with 19 goals and 13 assists in 45 appearances - surpassing the standards set by Pedro Camara last season. This is despite suffering a calf strain in the early part of the season that was to see him sidelined for almost the entire month of September.
There were only two first team signings over the whole season for Mallorca and they were both reactive to departures.
Bulgarian behemoth centre back Yasen Dimitrov left for Manchester City in a £27.5m deal - two years after signing from Ludogorets for £4.2m. Osvaldo Katiavala sadly couldn’t follow the same redemption arc as Gabr and he left for Fenerbahce in a £27m move - significant profit on the £1.6m paid to Pacos Ferreira in 2025. Goalkeeper Sergio Rico moved on to Al-Wahda (UAE) for £2m and Frank Priso’s £7m relause clause was activated by SC Freiburg after two and half seasons with us.
A special mention goes to Danilo Cataldi who returned to Italy with Venezia at the age of 35. Cataldi cost just £2.2m back in 2022 and paid that back and more with his goals and assists from set pieces. 200 league appearances for Mallorca and he leaves the club as favoured personnel.
Coming in was Vilmos Jakab - a Hungarian wonderkid - for a joint equal club record fee of £21m from Zebre (soon to be Juventus again). Jakab is 6’5” and can play centrally or on the right of defence and also in that defensive midfield role. Jakab finished the season with 45 appearances - 5 goals and 2 assists.
Also coming in was Strahinja Bojovic for £6.25m from Red Star (Belgrade). An exciting Serbian prospect (now our third young Serbian in the squad) at centre back who is very capable of the ball playing defender role. He managed 22 appearances with 2 goals this season.
We dominated our group in the Europa League, winning 5 of the 6 games before heavily rotating in the last with qualification already secured. We came up against Eintracht Frankfurt in the Second Knockout Round and carried a decent result out of the first leg. The game plan unravelled within 10 minutes of the second leg as we found ourselves three goals down. Gio Reyna pulled one back but despite our best efforts the result was gone from us and it finished 4-2 on aggregate to Frankfurt.
An edgy result against Navalcarnero and a solid performance against Celta Vigo led us into a Spanish Cup quarter final with Barcelona. It was a dominant performance to sweep Barcelona aside 2-0.
We struggled against an in-form Sevilla in the first leg of the semi-final then almost threw it away immediately in the second leg by going two goals down after 7 minutes! Mostafa Gabr led the fight back with an incredible hattrick to put us close. Gabr was almost the fairy tale hero with a fourth, but it was ruled out by VAR for offside. Out on away goals - which are apparently still a thing in Spain.
Spanish Super Cup Champions! Amazing! Sociedad (San Sebastian) were battling for the title all season but put-up little fight as we blitzed by them in the semi-final.
Barcelona in the final seemed like a tough ask but we were the better side over 90 minutes despite it ending goalless. Martin Piro’s 93rd minute lead was cancelled out in the 109th minute leading us into penalties. It went all the way to sudden death before Mallorca won it 6-5 on penalties! Vamos!
The La Liga title fight was the closest it has been during this save with just 6 points separating 1st and 5th.
It was a rollercoaster start to the season for us, beginning with a 7-2 demolition of Espanyol before being immediately humbled by Sociedad. Over the next month Valencia and Zaragoza also took maximum points from us.
That kick us into an incredible run of 21 league games without a loss! The cycle was broken by consecutive losses to Barcelona and Bilbao before finishing the season with six wins from the final eight games.
We finished as the highest scorers in the league with 97 goals and 38 goals conceded made us the fifth best team defensively.
23 year old goalkeeper Nikola Simic made the most appearances with 52 across the season. 49 goals conceded and 23 clean sheets.
Gio Reyna finished with the most assists on 21, Mostafa Gabr (as mentioned) got 13 and Johnathan Frohlich set up 12 for his teammates.
Johnathan Frohlich was our top scorer with 25 goals, Mostafa Gabr was the next highest scorer with 19 goals and Sebastian Banguera had 17 goals despite playing second fiddle to Frohlich and Vidovic.
Below is how we lined up for this season - with my chosen Best XI. It is the basis for how I plan to play in FM23 with a lot of focus on the Raumdeuter getting into those dangerous positions and being clinical in front of goal.
With 9 seasons gone, it’s time to call an end to this save. With two Spanish Cups and a Spanish Super Cup, how does this rate among my millions of Mallorca saves down the year? Pretty high, honestly. I’ve been more successful in previous editions, but I feel like I really got a good feel for this tactic rather than just having a fumble and falling into something that works.
I always feel that my saves tend to end just as I get a really exciting team together. We have an average age of 22 years old with 14 current internationals in the squad. I’d love to see how this side would do over the next 4-5 years as they develop. Could they break the Barcelona/Madrid dominance in La Liga? Probably not under my leadership in fairness…
Now, it’s time to take a break and think about getting ready for FM23!