Girona FC fans raise their scarves before playing Real Madrid in La Liga.
Girona FC fans raise their scarves before playing Real Madrid in La Liga.
The Champions League and romanticism have arguably never been further apart.
Money and matches have coloured the competition with more demand for Europe’s elite to face-off and the chances of fairytales are swallowed up by modern football.
Yet in Spain, a club who less than a decade ago were playing in front of sub 5,000 crowds are mixing it with continental giants and preparing to face a Liverpool side hoping to conquer at home and abroad. Yet Girona’s rise provokes debate and argument, the traditional versus the modern. The multi club taking on the status quo.
When you can lean on Manchester City, even if that relationship is perhaps overplayed, there will always be accusations of falsehood and favouritism. Of Girona making strides because of what happens in Manchester rather than Catalonia. Yet that is not fair, or accurate.
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“It has helped transform the club for the better,” says Mark Sochon, editor of laligaexpert.com, speaking to the Manchester Evening News.
“Girona have never had a big fanbase and they tended to get crowds of around 5,000 before their first ever promotion to the top flight in 2017. So, we’re not talking about a huge club with a great football history or tradition that has been eroded away by foreign owners.
“They are very much living the dream right now and no Girona fan would have seriously thought they’d ever see their side in the Champions League. Having Pere Guardiola involved as co-owner and chairman also helps in terms of the feeling that there are still Catalans heavily involved in running the club.”
That homely feel might be the case, but it is not felt across large swathes of Spain who view Girona as upstarts bolstered by City finances with an accessible link to one of the best clubs in world football. But that link can be overplayed. While Girona have taken players on loan from City in the past, and they did benefit from Savinho’s breakout campaign last season, they are built on their own foundations and not propped up by external factors. In fact Sochon believes the City element can be a relationship overplayed by the media and other clubs.
“Any conversation about their success invariably leads to talk of the City links and the advantages they’ve gained from that,” adds Sochon.
“In a country with a league that is trying to rival the Premier League, there are many who would rather not see an affiliate club of Manchester City in La Liga at all, let alone challenging at the top end of the division.
“The City links can be overplayed a bit in the media in truth though. They still have to abide by the same salary limits as everyone else and it’s not as though their squad is just filled with City loanees.
“What they did last season was incredible given that, but their status as a small Catalan club punching miles above their weight with the help of the English champions, tends to count against them. “That's particularly the case in the Madrid press and even amongst many supporters of other teams.”
Girona, who were beaten by Madrid last time out, were in tital contention for parts of last season, before eventually falling behind traditional big hitters Real Madrid and Barcelona. And while they’re not quite hitting the same heights this term as they juggle the demands of club football and European competition.
“It was always going to be difficult given they lost a big part of the spine of their team in the summer with Eric Garcia, Yan Couto, Aleix Garcia, Savinho and Artem Dovbyk leaving,” said Sochon.
“They’ve basically been forced to rebuild the side after a huge summer turnover, whilst playing European football for the first time.
“They also had a very serious injury crisis a few weeks back with basically half the squad sidelined at one point. That has made a difficult job even tougher for Michel, so they’ve really struggled with playing two games per week.
“Even allowing for those issues though, they’ll be really disappointed to have lost four out of five so far in the Champions League, particularly given they’ve had one of the more favourable schedules to date.“
It gets trickier from here on out with Liverpool the opponents tonight. Girona have won one of five thus far and face a tall order to extend their European adventure.
But an adventure it’s been, and one built mainly under their own steam rather than a City injection. While the blue half of Manchester has had a large say in their current standing, it’s far from the defining one.