It is difficult to find more emphatic figures: 34 points in 13 games (87% of the points played), 11 victories (six away from home), 31 goals scored (2.38 per game) and first place in the standings, endorsed in Vallecas with a new comeback (the fifth since the beginning of the championship). These are the data for Girona, which gallops through the League, without looking back.
If it is by numbers, the Vallecas match was a compendium of the best of Spanish football, so often reviled in comparison with other leagues, mainly with the Premier League. More often than not, magnificent matches occur, played by teams with far fewer financial resources than the considerable saga of English clubs committed to rudimentary, defensive and dull football.
Girona and Rayo deny several clichés, among them one that is anchored in a preconceived and classist idea of football: small teams have to make their game smaller to survive in the First Division. In Vallecas a match was played with two contenders comfortably installed in the classification, one of them so comfortable that he is the leader, confident in an intrepid way of understanding football.
If the statistics do not help to fully understand the Girona phenomenon, in the case of their confrontation with Rayo Vallecano they clearly explain the nature of the great game: 41 shots (22 from Rayo, 19 from Girona), 16 between sticks (nine and seven), three shots on the posts, three goals and a very high precision in the passes (84% and 86%), very high percentages in such a small field and in a match played at a breakneck speed.
Girona won it and could have lost it because the succession of opportunities was dizzying in both areas, but the victory confirmed that he is not willing to die of success, he does not alter his convictions and nor does he fall into the vice of speculation. He conceded a goal early in the game, but maintained the happy routine that allows him to recover, attack, score goals and win. Not in any way, anyway. Once again, Girona showed off with ambition and class, they did not falter until they achieved the tie, they held on, miraculously at times, in the waves of Rayo and recovered their air to score the winning goal.
In football it is common to talk about the revelation team, the one that emerges from the shadows of football and attracts attention for a streak of good results. This is not the case of Girona. He finished the previous season at full speed and was just a hair's breadth away from entering European competitions. It was announced as an attractive, high-flying team, led by a coach who expressed his desire for brilliant football.
Girona transmits a collective vision, not only of what happens on the field, but of the structure in which it is based. The team's convictions are those of the coach and those of the club, which seeks the kind of identity that is perceived in other small clubs that rebel against the official discourse of football. Along with Brighton, Sassuolo and Atalanta, to cite relevant examples, Girona refuses to accept itself as small and plays like a big one. Better than most of the big ones. The naturalness of the players to follow Míchel's theses is the same as that of the board to trust the coach, who has not always gone through days of wine and roses. A dream is underway that distinguishes amazement from surprise. His results are astonishing, but his game is not surprising. It is the ultimate derivative of a project that works like silk.
