Oli McBurnie and Scott McKenna have landed on their feet in the Canary Islands. “Well, how could they not?” asked their Las Palmas captain, Kirian Rodríguez, on Thursday night. “They’re 6ft 3in and have size 12 feet.” Not even Real Madrid, this Real Madrid, could knock them down. So much for Kylian Mbappé, whose arrival from Paris Saint-Germain was seven years in the making and dominates everything; it was the men signed from Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest who shone more here, departing to a standing ovation, embracing new teammates who are so glad they came.
McBurnie wasn’t even four minutes into his third game for Las Palmas when he cut inside, easing away from Antonio Rüdiger and set up Alberto Moleiro to put them into the lead against the Spanish and European champions. McKenna stood firm as the galaxy came back at them, Madrid only finding a way through with a second-half penalty. The Las Palmas coach, Luis Carrión, insisted his team could have got even more than the 1-1 draw their fans celebrated, so dominant had they been in the first half particularly. “One point doesn’t taste like much,” Moleiro admitted.
