Angel Llorente (75), dressed in his official Girona FC shirt, has a partisan heart. He must have been one of the few of the 14,184 spectators who filled Montilivi who could not decide between "his Madrid", the team with which he reached the heart of the city of the four rivers in 1968, and "his Girona", the team that he has fallen in love with her "It's that they play very well, what they do is fabulous. But have you seen their matches?" Like the Ángel, all of Girona is hallucinating with this team that has them in the Kinton cloud, that magical nimbus that Goku carried, with G from Girona, flying wherever he wanted. And why not in the Champions League? (Despite Madrid's 0-3...)
"So, why not finish the League in a place in the Champions League?", encourages Juli Torrent (62), from Palamós - where he was a coach at Tercera -, a professed Culer member and Girona convert, to dream, but not a member of Montilivi "because there were no more available seats". The white-and-red entity sold out the 9,700 season tickets, which do not cover the demand for seats from the 13,000 members. That's why tickets for the match against Madrid sold out 10 days ago, and that's why Montilivi is one of the stadiums with the highest occupancy in Primera, at 81%. "It's just a pass the way they play, they're doing it like a movie," Torrent reasons.
"In my life I would never have imagined this: a coach who gets involved, who speaks Catalan, supportive players who are a pineapple, differential signings, a bold game, who looks for verticals and diagonals... .”, analyzes the ex-coach, who sees only one enemy that can truncate the trajectory of this Girona: “The vertigo they can get”, altitude sickness, not getting used to living in the clouds. "I wouldn't dare to say anything, but when you win six in a row against teams that play for their lives... it's no small thing. It's a dream that will hopefully last. No one can take all of this away from us."
And get to where? "If you told me in the seventies that we would be leaders of Primera, I would have laughed", comments Pere Carmaniu (73), member "since the age of 6 or 7". He's so excited that he doesn't even dare to imagine a happy ending out loud... Torrent gives him a hand. "Leicester... Won the Premier League! Girona can make a Leicester", refers to the feat of Claudio Ranieri's team, which won the English League in 2016, for the first time in its 132 years. "Why not Girona? We can be upstairs. At least getting a European place would be a success, but it depends on how Atlético, Real Sociedad... maybe we could finish third, fourth, in a place in the Champions League. It would be the...", the man stops himself.
It would practically be a miracle to go to the Champions League for a club from a provincial capital city of just over 100,000 inhabitants. A modest entity, despite the support of the City Group (owner of 44% of the club), with the 15th budget in the League (around 59.5 million), and with a salary cap that is the 13th in the championship. With these low-middle-class numbers, Girona, as their coach always remembers, should aspire to maintain the category, to think only of a fifth season in Primera.
But the fans of Montilivi want more. He takes pride in his team and responds en masse to help topple the giant, the foreign invader that threatens to bring them down from the cloud. A deep-rooted feeling of protection next to the Onyar since the flies from the tomb of Sant Narcís drove away the French troops in the 13th century. The color white is in the minority, caged in a corner of the stands. The funky stadium, dyed white-and-red, bustling and festive with a mosaic of great occasions, roars and loudly exhibits its "Girona pride". Also his animosity towards Madridism, to Florentino Pérez announced over the public address system or to the falls and gestures of Vinícius who defy the tribune.
The start is promising, but the 0-2 in 21 minutes reduces the decibels. Despite this, the spirit in the white-and-red stand does not drop, discouragement is unaffordable, fueled by the displays of faith in the comeback of their footballers, the effort and the good handling of the ball. And, of course, revolted by the referee Pulido Santana, who did not grant a single wish to the fans. In the end, he exploded with shouts of "Puta Real Madrid" and "assassin" at Nacho for the entrance to Porto, who was taken off on a stretcher.
A Girona fan that, despite the fact that Madrid made it touch the ground, lives installed in its magic cloud... The farewell with ovation to its players was anthological.
