Claudio Echeverri arrived at the Etihad in January 2025, a year after Manchester City agreed a deal with River Plate.
The attacking midfielder struggled for regular minutes under Pep Guardiola, limited to 64 minutes from three matches for the Citizens.
Last summer, Manchester City let him join Bayer Leverkusen on a season-long loan deal, with the aim of helping the Argentine settle in Europe.
Two months ago, Sport Witness covered claims from Spain that Guardiola wanted him to join Girona last summer. However, the 20-year-old picked the Bundesliga side, and this clearly didn’t work out for him.
Echeverri making progress at Girona
Echeverri played 270 minutes from 11 matches for Bayer Leverkusen and was unhappy with his situation in Germany. Manchester City cut short his loan stay and then sent him on loan to Girona in January.
The Argentina U23 international has featured in four matches for the La Liga side, including a 2-1 win over Barcelona on Monday. He came off the bench in the final 17 minutes against Hansi Flick’s side.
After yesterday’s victory, the Manchester City man spoke to DAZN in Spain and Estadio Deportivo have relayed his comments.
Manchester City man has clear goal
The South American is pleased to put the difficult German spell behind him and knows what he wants from the loan move to Girona.
“I was really looking forward to it [playing in matches like this]. It was a difficult few months in Germany, I had a really hard time,” he said.
“Today I’m happy to be here, trying to get back to the form that led to my transfer to City.”
Girona’s win over Barcelona has seen them climb to 12th spot, five points away from the relegation zone. The Manchester City owned player says Girona suffered to secure a big win over the “best team in the world”.
“We had to suffer at some points, but the team played very well, ran a lot, and that’s why we took the victory,” Echeverri explained.