As the Girona supporters filed out of the Estadi Montolivi on September 30, the overriding feeling was one of ‘Well, it was nice while it lasted’.
Girona had fallen to a 3-0 defeat to Real Madrid and the expectation was for a very promising — and, until that point, unbeaten — start to the season for the Catalan club to regress back to normality and for them to drop away.
However, four months on and the dream remains. Come Saturday evening, the dream could be more alive than ever.
Since tasting defeat for the first time this campaign, Girona have not lost any of their 15 La Liga games, positioning them surprisingly in second place and two points behind Real, who they face this weekend.
Barcelona have already been seen off in one of the games of the season, as have Atletico Madrid; and on both occasions, Girona scored four goals. Now comes the acid test of a trip to the Santiago Bernabeu and the chance to regain top spot in the table.
La Liga has been dominated by Real, Barcelona and, at times, Atletico in recent years, but the team that is inspiring this Girona side are not Spanish but English. Leicester City, the surprise winners of the Premier League in 2016, are whom the Catalans are trying to replicate.
Similarly to as Leicester were in 2016, Girona are also in their second season back in the first division and this whirlwind of a campaign has grown into something rather special and unexpected. After this weekend, only 14 games remain and things are starting to become real.
It would be a remarkable achievement for a team that, while benefitting from being part of the City Football Group (CFG), operate with the seventh-smallest spending cap in La Liga. Their record signing is striker Artem Dovbyk who, at €7.5 million, cost a fraction of the €100 million Madrid splashed out on Jude Bellingham.
Dovbyk, who should be fit to play after a knee injury, is level with Bellingham at the top of the scoring charts with 14 apiece, and it is difficult to argue that Girona have not been the team playing the best football in the division.
Michel’s side play a thrilling style of football and are the top scorers in La Liga with 52 goals. They average over 56 per cent possession per game and have made scoring look easy with neatly executed goals that frequently involve cute cut-backs and passes into the opposition’s net.
Michel guiding remarkable title charge
The manager’s work cannot be underestimated, he is getting the best out of nearly everyone in his squad. Full backs Miguel Gutierrez and Yan Couto, who is on loan from Manchester City, and midfielder Aleix Garcia, who was also at City, are frequently linked with bigger clubs.
There have also been shrewd acquisitions such as defenders Daley Blind and Eric Garcia. Girona’s defending has improved as the campaign has progressed, with half of their eight clean sheets coming in their last seven games.
Girona’s 58 points haul after 23 games is the best for a second-placed team in the league — only Real, in 2010/11 and 2013/14, have had as good a tally at this stage of the season.
This is a club not accustomed to top-flight, never mind top-of-the-table, football. This is only their fourth season in La Primera and were first promoted in 2017. The sports pages of the local newspapers are often dominated by basketball or cycling rather than football, and their 14,000-capacity stadium is quaint if a little rickety.
For now at least, Girona remain in contention for a historic finish. Even securing European football — let alone a place in the Champions League, which now appears almost certain — would be remarkable.
“Madrid are made to win the league, like Barca and Atletico. We aren’t! It’s not our goal. Our dream is to reach Europe,” Michel said. “But this is not a normal game, it’s special for everyone and it is the first time we can go to the Bernabeu to become the league leaders.”
Carlo Ancelotti’s Madrid are well-accustomed to a title run-in, however, and are currently unbeaten in 17 league matches. They will be a tough nut to crack; both this weekend and over the coming months.
What a better way to prolong the dream than by laying down a marker this weekend?
“For us it is a very important match because if we win, the team would be leading, but we have to go game by game,” added Michel, who will be suspended from the dugout and watch the game from the stands.
“We want to make history at the end of the season, but [winning] this match would be very special. Girona would be on everyone’s lips, but we wouldn’t be candidates to win the league for winning at the Bernabeu, not yet.”