La Liga: Mallorca 3 - 4 Atlético

Atlético de Madrid closed a disappointing 2010-11 season on Saturday evening with a 4-3 win on Mallorca, in a match that also brought Quique Sánchez Flores’s time as coach to an end. Sergio Agüero scored a hat-trick, but results elsewhere meant the club would have to reach the following season’s Europa League through a play-off rather than directly.

Mallorca went into the final round still fighting relegation. With Almería and Hércules already down, six clubs were battling to survive, and the islanders needed a result. They lost this one and stayed up regardless.

Both sides played for the win, which produced a thoroughly open match. Mallorca started strongly and pinned Atlético back, but the visitors’ midfield took control after ten minutes and the opening goal followed: Juanfran found Agüero, who beat Aouate from a tight angle. Mallorca responded almost immediately, Emilio Nsue heading straight at David de Gea, who was in excellent form and saved again when Webó got through after sloppy defending from Tiago. The Cameroonian troubled Ujfalusi repeatedly all evening.

Five minutes after the first goal Atlético scored again, José Antonio Reyes threading a pass to Juanfran, who finished from a similar position to make it 2-0. It was the winger’s first goal since joining the club in January, weeks after he had spoken about missing the chance to dedicate a goal to his recently deceased father. Agüero came close to a second before the break after a one-two with Reyes, but shot over.

Mallorca began the second half knowing that a single Deportivo goal elsewhere would send them down, and chances rained on De Gea’s goal, as Webó, De Guzmán and Pereira all found him in the way. At the other end Atlético were ruthless. Agüero, again supplied by Reyes, curled a shot inside the far post for his 100th goal for the club. Mallorca replied within a minute from the penalty spot through Jonathan de Guzmán after Valera handled Chori Castro’s shot, and Webó headed a third in the 70th minute to make it 2-3.

With one goal between the sides, Mallorca committed everything forward. The decisive moment came in the 81st minute, and it belonged entirely to Agüero: past three defenders, past the goalkeeper, and a finish lobbed in from what was almost the byline. It was his first hat-trick in a rojiblanco shirt and, as it turned out, one of his last significant acts for the club.

The season that ended on Mallorca had promised more. Atlético had won the Europa League and the UEFA Super Cup the previous year, and a league campaign that produced a Europa League play-off place instead of direct qualification was widely read as a step back. The rebuild that followed brought a new coach within months and, by the end of the year, Diego Simeone. That era is covered in the club history. Agüero’s own story at the club is told in his profile, and more reporting from these seasons is preserved in the archive.