GIRONA, Spain — Something special is cooking in Girona, and that doesn’t just mean the giant paella served to supporters outside their Montilivi stadium before matches.
Last weekend, they came from behind to beat Valencia 2-1 to remain top of LaLiga, level with Real Madrid and four points clear of reigning champions Barcelona, whom they face on Sunday.
There was an inevitability about the late goals from club legend Cristhian Stuani, the 37-year-old who scored twice in the final eight minutes to cancel out Hugo Duro’s opener. The pressure had been growing in the way it often does when big teams chase a game against smaller teams — except the role of the big team here was played by Girona, in their second season back in LaLiga, against Valencia, the six-time champions of Spain and two-time Champions League finalists.
No team has recovered more points from losing positions in Europe’s top five leagues, and the three won against Valencia took Girona’s total to 19. They wear their opponents down, relentless, and stick to their aggressive, attacking football come-what-may. “They move you around, they play with you,” Valencia’s Duro said after the defeat. “They are a magnificent team, and there’s a reason why they are up [at] the top.”
What is most is impressive is that this is being done on the back of a summer overhaul. Midfielder Oriol Romeu was signed by Barcelona, loanees Rodrigo Riquelme (Atletico Madrid) and Taty Castellanos(Lazio) returned to their parent clubs, while defender Santiago Bueno was transferred to Wolves. They have not been missed with Daley Blind, Eric García, Sávio and Artem Dovbyk among those to arrive and seamlessly adapt to the requirements of impressive coach Míchel, whose sprint down the touchline after Stuani’s winner against Valencia was one of the images of the season so far.
With 38 points by December, Girona’s preseason objective of LaLiga survival has already been ticked off. Now, there are loftier targets, but with backing from the Abu Dhabi-owned City Football Group (CFG) — which owns a total of 13 clubs including Manchester City, New York City FC, Melbourne City and Yokohama F. Marinos — is their story as much of a football fairytale as it appears on first glance? ESPN has spoken to a range of people across the Catalan club to learn more about their incredible rise to the top of the Spanish pyramid, and where they go from here.
Founded in 1930, this is just Girona’s fourth season in the Spanish top flight. As recently as 1999, they were playing in the regionalised fifth tier against local Catalan sides in front of crowds of 200. It was not until 2008 that they returned to the second tier after almost 50 years outside the top two divisions. In 2017, for the first time ever, they were promoted to LaLiga. That same year, after promotion, CFG purchased 44.3% of the club, a portion that’s since risen to 47%.
Girona Football Group — led by Pere Guardiola, Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola’s brother — own a 16% stake. Pere originally came into the club in 2015, helping them out of insolvency, and he was involved in the CFG deal. Another 35% has been owned since 2020 by Marcelo Claure, the president of Club Bolivar, a Bolivian side who are also partnered with CFG. Claure was previously involved with Inter Miami, too. In total, 13 clubs are now either owned, part-owned or partnered with CFG — they have five in Europe, three in South America, and teams in the United States, Australia, Japan, China and India.
