Everything about Girona is unassuming. A 14,000-seater stadium that wouldn't look amiss in League Two. A city crammed between mountains in deep
Catalonia. Even the haunt of the supporters group is a tiny bar tucked away in a quiet corner under a block of flats. It begs the question: how have they been going punch-for-punch with 's heavyweights and ? The obvious place to point is the name on the top of the door, City
Football Group. So they've bought their way to relevancy. Case closed. Well, it's not quite as simple as that. In fact, there's so much more to the success story of a club who were playing in regional championships just a quarter of a century ago. The closest you'll get to a major-money signing is an hour down the road in . The squad that's mounted an unlikely title charge is a mix of experienced heads and youthful exuberance. Their record signing is €7.5million striker Artem Dovbyk, which might buy you one of Erling Haaland's toes. That doesn't mean being under the Manchester-led umbrella hasn't played a part, of course. They're reaping the rewards of one of the best scouting systems in world football, acting as a feeder club for budding talents like 19-year-old winger Savio, or Savinho as he's known locally. That's all they were ever meant to be, though. A feeder club. Girona shouldn't be competing in a race which they've led for a large part of the season. "It's a mix of everything," Pepe Sierra, founder of supporters group Federacio Penyes, and director Francisco Lara explain to me. "From the players, the manager and the financial support." Pepe was member No.1 back in 1992, at which time he would travel to away games on a coach with the fathers of the players. "It was like a family," he recalled, with the group now over 200 strong. And that feeling still resonates today, as Francisco very kindly offers me a lift to the Estadi Montilivi, where Girona are to play host to Rayo Vallecano, while it lashes down. Sky Sports is bringing you 500 live football games to watch, as well access to C £22 a month "It's not rained for three months," he tells me, as I wonder whether I actually boarded a flight to Manchester. How apt, that they'd gone unbeaten in the league for the same length of time, before back-to-back losses to Madrid and Athletic Bilbao. It all felt very pathetic fallacy as they returned home for the first time since those results, which had handed the advantage back to Real. Cats and dogs would be putting it lightly. The downpour didn't dampen the display from Girona, who got back to winning ways with a 3-0 victory. Thankfully the less-than-convincing roof over the press box kept the rain at bay long enough to allow me to marvel at a team which on paper, makes little sense. English fans will be familiar with goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga, as well as the injured ex-Manchester United defender Daley Blind. The big presence of Dovbyk leads the line, aided in attack by his fellow Ukrainian Viktor Tsygankov and the aforementioned Savio. In the heart of defence, 34-year-old David Lopez is partnered by and
Barcelona reject Eric Garcia. Young full-backs Yan Couto and Miguel Gutierrez flank them, with Yangel Herrera, Aleix Garcia and Portu forming the midfield three. Hardly the talents Xavi at Barcelona or Carlo Ancelotti at
Real Madrid have at their disposal. So who exactly is the pied piper getting a tune out of this merry band of misfits? "Girona needed a coach to give them an established identity after fighting to return to the first division, and the arrival of Míchel was essential for the road back to the top," SPORT journalist Sebastián Vargas Rozo tells me. Miguel Ángel Sánchez Muñoz (you can see why he goes by Michel) has unapologetically instilled a brave brand of attacking football, which maximises both the time the ball is on the ground and the space on the pitch to manipulate matches in their favour. Sebastian's sentiment is echoed by La Liga pundit and former
Premier League midfielder Andrea Orlandi, who I caught up with in Barcelona the following morning. He explained: "Now everybody speaks about Michel like being the next
Pep Guardiola. "But when they signed him, he'd come from Huesca, where he’d been sacked. In Segunda Division they were in the bottom three at one stage after 12 games, and they offered him a new contract because they knew he was really, really good. "Not many clubs do that. If you look only at the results and not the performances, you would sack the coach. And this is when they started winning, got promoted and last season they were impressive and now they're even better. "After losing Oriol Romeo, Taty Castellanos, who scored lots of goals, Rodrigo Riquelme, who's now at Atletico Madrid, you would have thought 'no chance they're gonna equal that'. Well, they've got even better. TNT is the only place you can watch all the action from the
Champions League this year. You can see every game from the group stage right through to the final as
Manchester City look to defend their crown as the newest kings of the World's biggest and best football tournament. £29.99 a month "I always say, and that's very true, that a manager, a good coach, can make an international player, or one very miserable. And in this case, Michel is turning not average players, but players that were never that good, into international players." Aleix Garcia made his
Spain debut aged 26 in November, with Couto, 21, doing the same for
Brazil a month prior. And Savio followed in his footsteps, earning his first international call up this month and a debut against England. "This is down to the coach," continues Andrea. "I would give him a good 65% importance in this season, because he gets every decision right, and the way the team plays is just sensational. If you look at player for player individually, they're not stars, but they they play the best football." He also gives credit to sporting director Quique Cárcel, the man who wisely stuck by Michel and pre-dates the arrival of the City Football Group (CFG) in 2017 by three years. "If the club settles in the first division we will be able to do great things," Cárcel predicted upon their return to the top tier in 2022, a prophecy that's undoubtedly ringing true less than two years on. He has worked wonders with a salary cap 14 times smaller than Real's, the eighth-lowest in La Liga. But it doesn't stop them being tarred with the same brush often used against City. "We also hear a lot here that Girona, having the shelter of the City Football Group, has somehow been 'buying' its way to the top four of La Liga," Sebastian says. "There is no doubt that they may have certain players who, under other conditions, it is unlikely to see them in Montilivi, such as Savinho or Yan Couto, both starters of the team. "But all that investment would be insufficient if behind it there was no tactical work like that of Míchel. Their squad is good, but it is far from being the best in Spain, at least at the beginning of the season. If they are now more sought after players it is because of the work they have done on the field this season." The mark of the City Group is clear to see, but Pepe and Francisco tell me their arrival wasn't the real turning point for the club - pointing instead to their 2008 promotion from the third tier. "After 50 years out of the second division, we returned. And it was a change in all the people. In the regular season of that year, there was almost 1000 people in the stadium, although the club was in the first position. "Then in the play-offs, almost 10,000 people in the stadium. And it was a change in the city that people thought that it was a big occasion, and the club will be bigger. "And it was. So we never got relegated from the second division and we were promoted also to the first division two times which had never happened before." Francisco does quietly whisper to me that he also supports Real, which may sound like sacrilege to some, but football was behind even the
basketball team in the rank of sporting importance in Girona. "When I was 10 or so, the team was playing in regional
Catalan leagues, and nobody knew anything about the club, it was impossible to be a fan," he explained. "If you're a kid, you want to have the stickers and these things that you like as a kid. But now the kids that are born in, I don't know, 2005 or 2010, they support the club of the city because they see them as another team of the league that it's bigger now." While it was all up from there on the field, off it the club were spiralling into debts, which by 2013 reached a reported €2.3m (£2m) to the Spanish tax authorities and another €800k (£680k) to public health services. Their knight in shining armour was City boss Pep Guardiola's businessman brother Pere, who helped secure a takeover by French group TVSE Futbol in 2015 and then two years later another buyout by CFG. So as much as the ownership may be frowned upon from afar, there was no qualms from those in the city at the time. "[The reaction] wasn't negative because the economic issues were very bad at the club," Francisco continues as he translates Pepe's Catalan for me. "People thought that it would help to have better players and the club couldn't pay the debt. The only thought was it will help to continue the club's existence, to have the support, the financial stability." They've each conceded the title challenge is probably over with for the underdogs to compete with. But they're confident this isn't a one-and-done, flash in the pan campaign. "Being in first division was a dream. So fighting for the title is incredible. This year, if the club manages to secure the , we think that will last in the following years because the money that leads you to participate in these kind of competitions is important to maintain a high level of players. "And it will perhaps not be to compete for the title every year, but to be in European competitions every year. Perhaps like Villarreal, these kind of teams that are always between 4th, 6th, 7th place." It's not just their supporter bias talking. "It is difficult to maintain regularity to fight directly with Barcelona or Real Madrid," Sebastian admitted. "I think the process accelerated a bit, reaching the La Liga Champions League places earlier than expected. But, since they are in that position, I don't think they will be very far from that objective in the coming seasons. "They can achieve it with the great credit they are earning this season, in addition to the financial support of the City Football Group and the project of Míchel, who already assured that he would stay at least one more season." The boss may be sticking around, but another summer of upheaval in the squad is to be expected. Savio appears Manchester-bound despite his relative inexperience. "He's ready for the ," Andrea insists. "Because he's got the speed. To play as a winger in
England you've got to be quick to start with. "Then he's able to maintain that speed in long distances as well, and to make good decisions with the ball, which is very difficult when you play at that pace. "With quicker players, you tend to see worse decisions in the final third because they're going so quick. He's got everything to be a star in the Premier League and if you play for Man City, he will have chances and he will create lots of chances." That doesn't concern those who have seen players come and go. "It's almost every year when a player has a good season here it’s normal that a bigger club buys him so it's not a new thing," Pepe and Francisco say. "But it's the thing that we said previously, if the team manages to be in the main competitions and new money keeps getting in the club we will be able to replace them." Whether they're at the top of La Liga to stay or will fade away in a similar
fashion to Leicester in England doesn't really matter to those who have been a part of the journey from the start. One thing will never change for them. "It's home," responds Francisco after I asked him what he holds most dearly about the club. "And being at home, you have this family with you - the supporters club, you are a real family."