Unbridled joy after Girona play-off win

Girona

Well wouldn’t you just know it? Last sea­son Girona threw away a chance of reach­ing the First Di­vi­sion of Span­ish foot­ball by los­ing 2-0 at home to Rayo in the play-off final, hav­ing se­cured a first-leg away vic­tory that seemed to all but as­sure them of a place in La Liga, mak­ing it a dis­mal play-off record of four fail­ures in four sep­a­rate at­tempts. Then, hav­ing crept into the play-offs on the last day of the reg­u­lar sea­son this year, they not only saw off pro­mo­tion favourites Eibar with a mirac­u­lous 2-0 away win after los­ing the first leg 1-0 at home, but then went and won 3-1 away at Tener­ife in the final game, hav­ing seem­ingly lost a great op­por­tu­nity by only draw­ing the first leg 0-0 at Mon­tilivi, to once again claim their place among the foot­balling elite.

And breathe. What a tense and yet re­ward­ing end to the sea­son it was for Michel’s men. Foot­ball, eh? So ac­cus­tomed to dis­ap­point­ment, fans could barely con­tain them­selves in the streets of Girona after a dom­i­nant per­for­mance in Tener­ife saw their side march proudly into the top flight on June 19.

They didn’t make it easy for them­selves. Three de­feats in the last six league games to Carta­gena, Tener­ife and Sport­ing left Girona need­ing a point at Bur­gos on the last day to seal a play-off place. Al­though an edgy per­for­mance re­sulted in a 0-0 draw, no one was overly op­ti­mistic about Girona’s chances, es­pe­cially given the afore­men­tioned play-off record of re­cent times.

Girona were full value for their win in Tener­ife, how­ever, and Michel will re­ceive well de­served praise for that. It was a vic­tory that healed many old wounds. The three goals came from Stu­ani, the leg­end, who tucked away a first-half penalty awarded for hand­ball, then there was a de­flected own goal after Baena crossed to make it 1-2 after the hosts had equalised and we were headed for extra time. By the way, in line with new play-off rules in­tro­duced this sea­son, Girona had to win here, hav­ing fin­ished lower than Tener­ife in the league. There would be no away goal rule and no penalty shoot out. And just as Tener­ife looked like they might spoil the party with an­other equaliser, Arnau Martínez, the young right-back who plays like a vet­eran, com­pleted the win by turn­ing in a free kick from the left.

Far from Mon­tilivi, far from the bulk of fans who had to hud­dle to­gether around TVs to watch the game, the curse of the play-offs was fi­nally buried. It now re­mains to be seen what Girona do in the sum­mer trans­fer mar­ket to pre­pare their squad for an­other sea­son in La Liga.

Barça

Re­gard­less of the in­ces­sant ru­mours sur­round­ing Barça play­ers, at the time of writ­ing the club had not yet made any sum­mer sign­ings, while Coutinho had of­fi­cially left for Aston Villa, Luuk de Jong had re­turned to Sevilla (and sub­se­quently signed for PSV) and Dani Alvés and Ous­mane Dembélé had both been re­leased at the end of their con­tracts. There were on­go­ing sagas, how­ever: one sur­round­ing Dembélé, as it re­mains un­clear as to whether he will sign for an­other big club as a free agent, or ac­tu­ally re-sign for Barça, and the other Frenkie De Jong, who has been courted by Man­ches­ter United since the win­dow opened.

Es­panyol

The periq­ui­tos have ap­pointed a new head coach since the last time of writ­ing, hav­ing head hunted for­mer Granada boss Diego Mar­tinez. Mar­tinez com­pleted three cam­paigns with the An­dalu­sian club be­fore re­sign­ing at the end of the 2020-21 sea­son. He reached the quar­ter­fi­nals of the Copa del Rey and Eu­ropa League and fin­ished ninth in La Liga, with­out ever hav­ing been among the rel­e­ga­tion places. He was not as­so­ci­ated with any club at the time of his ap­point­ment, which is an ex­cit­ing one for fans, given that Mar­tinez is seen as being among the more promis­ing and am­bi­tious young Span­ish coaches.