It is difficult to find more resounding figures: 34 points in 13 games (87% of the points contested), 11 victories (six away from home), 31 goals scored (2.38 per game) and the first position in the classification, ratified in Vallecas with another comeback (the fifth since the beginning of the championship). These are the data of Girona, which is running through the League at a gallop, without looking back.
If it is by numbers, the Vallecas game was a compendium of the best of Spanish football, so often insulted in comparison with other leagues, mainly with the Premier League. More often than not, there are magnificent games, played by teams with far less financial resources than the considerable lineage of English clubs stuck in rudimentary, defensive and heavy football.
Girona and Rayo debunk several clichés, including one that is anchored in a preconceived and classist idea of football: small teams must shorten their game to survive in the First Division. In Vallecas, a game was played with two contenders comfortably settled in the classification, one of which is 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 explain the nature of the party line by line: 41 shots (22 from Rayo, 19 from Girona), 16 between the posts (nine and seven ), three hits on the posts, three goals and a very high accuracy 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 ready to die of success, does not alter his convictions and does not fall into the vice of speculation. He conceded a goal right when the game started, but he maintained the happy routine that allows him to recover, attack, score goals and win. Not in any way, besides. Once again, Girona deployed with ambition and class, they did not falter until they got the equaliser, they held on, miraculously at times, resisting Rayo's waves, and regained the air to score the goal of the victory
In football, it is common to talk about the revelation team, the one that bursts out of the shadows of football and attracts attention due to a streak of good results. This is not the case with Girona. He finished the previous season at full throttle and was one step away from entering the European competitions. It was announced as an attractive, high-flying team, led by a coach who is squeezed in the 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 convictions of the team are those of the coach and those of the club, which aims for the kind of identity that is perceived in other small clubs that rebel against the official football discourse. Along with Brighton, Sassuolo or 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, for whom everything has not always been blowing and making bottles. A dream is underway that distinguishes stupefiation from surprise. His results are surprising, but his play is not. It is the latest derivative of a project that works like silk.
