Position: 3rd – 82 points
Grade: A+
Record: 25-6-7Goals Scored: 85Goals Conceded: 46
While top scorer last season Taty Castellanos and midfielder Oriol Romeu left, Savio and Artem Dovbyk meant that Girona could forget about their absences. Aside from their two games against Real Madrid, they were a good game for all comers, and scored famous victories over Barcelona twice and Atletico Madrid. It seemed the big question was when they would fall off, or when the pressure would get to them, and while their away record certainly dropped off in the final run-in, it didn’t really.
Two goals off Real Madrid’s tally, and three points behind Barcelona, this felt like Girona were the winners of the season.
Girona will play in Europe for the first time next season, after their best season ever. They could not have dreamed it better. The fact they played the delectable, entertaining and ambitious football made it even more enjoyable for Montilivi. There isn’t a great deal to say beyond that, pretty much everything went right.
Michel Sanchez did an outstanding job ensuring that his side kept their feet on the ground, and kept playing with the same devil-may-care attitude even as the heights started to induce vertigo. It’s easy to gloss over the actual work and hard grit they showed at times too, which is clouded by the romance, but the performances of Dovbyk, Miguel Gutierrez, Aleix Garcia, Savio and Ivan Martin were off the scale, and they dealt with plenty of injuries too. None of those names, with the exception of Gutierrez, would have been on the radar of top clubs, but the players and staff at Girona made it happen.
Girona picked up where they left off last season, playing swashbuckling football, and outscoring their opponents. Possessing a seemingly unparalleled ability to turn games around in the second half, whatever the issues they had at the back were more than compensated for at the other end.
Standout moment: Hard to choose between the 4-2 win over Barcelona at Montjuic or at Montilivi. Both were cataclysmic moments in Catalan football history, and brought similar joy to a title.
Key player: Aleix Garcia – this could have been any of four to five players, but as Dovbyk gets the scoring hype, and Savio gets the assist credit, it goes to the conductor of the orchestra.
Surprise of the season: Savio – nobody in Spain knew about him before his arrival, and neither were Girona intending on him being this important. It took all of about four games to realise they have something special, or in Michel’s words, the best talent he’s ever coached..
Michel will be there next season, which is the big one. Girona have showed in previous seasons that Sporting Director Quique Carcel is capable of not only assuming losses, but bringing in improvements. That looks harder than ever, but throughout their time under Michel, Girona have continued to learn and grow despite the setbacks thrown in their face. The fundamentals of thir success show no sign of changing.
There is a lot of doubt about who they will be turning out, and perhaps just as pertinent as the loss of players is the loss of time on the training ground. Girona will be thrust into the European schedule, and Michel will not have time to work on a system that has to be finely tuned. Dovbyk, Garcia, Eric Garcia, Savio, Ivan Martin, Miguel Gutierrez, Yan Couto, there’s a lot of question marks over their starters next season.
