‘I remember when our results weren’t even on teletext’ - a people's recent history of Girona FC

The story of the 2023/24 La Liga season has undoubtedly been high-flying Girona FC, rubbing shoulders with Real Madrid and fighting for the title in only their fourth ever top-flight campaign. Check out our Filling the Sink new podcast on the team's successful run:

The blanc-i-vermells are clearly the best team in Catalonia this season, as demonstrated in their scintillating 2-4 December win away to FC Barcelona, and they look on course to at least secure Champions League football for next season.

Not only that, they're one of the best teams in all of Europe. At the time of publication, nobody except Bayern Munich have scored more goals than Girona have in all of the continent's top five leagues.  

All this, from a team who have the 8th lowest salary cap in the division, who have never finished higher than 10th place in the league before and have never played in European competition, and doing it in front of an average attendance of fewer than 13,000 fans each week.

As recently as 2007, Girona played in the 4th tier of Spanish football, and were last in the 5th tier in 1999. 

“Why not get excited and do something even bigger than reaching the Champions League?” Pepe Sierra, president of federation of Girona FC supporters’ clubs, is embracing every moment of this historic campaign, allowing himself to get carried away, and enjoying every minute of it.

In an interview with Catalan News, he explains that he’s been following the fortunes of his local club since 1982, and has seen Girona FC play in all of the top five tiers of Spanish football – he has seen his team at the summit of La Liga, as well as grinding it out in the regionalized Primera Catalana. “Girona has usually been a third division team during this time,” he says.

Eduard Solà, a sports journalist at Catalunya Ràdio, has also been following Girona since the 1980s, and has also watched this incredulous rise from up close. “I always joked that I’d do one year of the Champions League [with work] and then retire. Well, now it looks like that Champions League campaign could happen sooner than I thought,” he jokes in an interview with Catalan News.

“I never imagined that people from my generation would be watching games in the top division,” Solà says. “We’ve always been in the second row.”

"The 'Champions League' of the poor" 

In Catalonia, teams not competing in the top flight can regional lay in the Catalan Cup, a tournament that Girona no longer vie for but one they have for many years. “When we were in the second division, when we played in the Copa Catalunya, we said that that was ‘the Champions League of the poor teams’, and we really enjoyed going to all those different grounds playing in the cup,” Sierra says.

“Another year, I remember when we were relegated to Primera Catalana (the regionalized 5th tier of the Spanish football pyramid), our results weren’t even on teletext.”

"Other seasons we didn't get promoted, it didn't hurt as much as that day"

Girona are riding the crest of a wave now, but this has come on the back of years of hardship and heartbreak. “The biggest disappointments were the two recent playoff final defeats against Rayo Vallecano and Elche in 2020 and 2021,” Eduard Solà says. Girona had led the two-legged final against Rayo after beating the franjirojo away in Vallecas in the first leg before being undone, while against Elche, the Catalans held on with a man less for half an hour in the scoreless playoff final second leg, before the away team dealt the fatal blow in the 96th minute. “We had it in our hands, playing with home advantage in Montilivi, and they were both just huge, huge blows,” Solà says.

Pepe Sierra remembers another game years earlier as a low point, when Girona were on the verge of clinching their first-ever promotion to the top division. “The Lugo game was very tough,” he remembers. Girona faced off against Lugo on the last day of the season who had nothing to play for, while a win would have ensured automatic promotion for the Catalans. Meanwhile, just behind them in the table at the start of the day were Sporting Gijón, who face the tough task of travelling to league winners Real Betis on the last day of the season.

Girona had led 1-0 thanks to a goal right before half time and the party was in full swing in Montilivi all the way up to the very last minute, until the unthinkable happened. Lugo equalized, and Sporting’s victory at Real Betis meant Girona dropped from second to third in the table, losing out on automatic promotion, before eventually failing in the playoffs too. “It was so tough that the other seasons we didn't get promoted, it didn't hurt as much as that day,” Sierra says.

"Explosion of happiness" 

On the other end of the spectrum are the happiest days of following this team’s incredible run over recent decades. The pinacle, or rather pinnacles, for the Catalunya Radio journalist were the two promotions into the top division of La Liga, especially the first time, in 2017. “That day in Zaragoza, it was a promotion that we were anticipating all week, and in the end it was an explosion of happiness because it was the first time,” Solà says. Prior to that day, Girona had made the playoffs in three of the prior four campaigns, and had become grimly accustomed to the heartbreak, but that bad luck was finally broken in 2017.

“The turning point for Girona is 2008,” Pepe Sierra says, “when we were promoted from Segunda B (third tier) to Segunda (second.) This is when the history of Girona changed forever. Before 2008, practically nobody knew who we were, and ever since that promotion, it’s been funny because that season we got around 500 to 1,000 fans in Montilivi, but 10,000 in our home ground for the playoffs against Ceuta. It was crazy.”

"Míchel català"

To explain the magic of this season, there’s no doubt in Eduard Solà’s mind that credit goes to one man in particular. “Míchel is the manager who has changed absolutely everything. He got promotion to the first division with Rayo Vallecano and Huesca before, and he changed the team when he arrived here.”

Míchel took over Girona as the club lay in mid-table in the second division, and just about earned the final playoff spot in the league, before surprisingly winning that mini-tournament to reach Primera División once again. A year and a half after taking over in the second division, he led his team to the summit of the first division for many weeks already this season. “Míchel has fallen on his feet and it is really spectacular. But the club has been working well for some time now to achieve these good results,” Solà says.

The manager has endeared himself to his new surroundings “from the very first day,” Pepe Sierra says. From his first press conferences as Girona boss, the Madrid native insisted on speaking Catalan, despite barely having started to learn the language at the time. Míchel wanted to completely immerse himself in the local culture, and told local journalists to only ask him questions in Catalan so that he’d learn it quicker.

During press conferences, Míchel regularly looks to his media officer to his side for help when trying to speak Catalan words, and has even asked journalists to repeat their questions in Catalan to be able to understand the language better when heard in a natural setting. Nowadays, “Míchel català” is a chant regularly heard in Montilivi.

"Not only for the win, but the way we won"

With Míchel managing on the sidelines, what makes it such a good team on the pitch? “I think it’s the whole team, the speed of our play, I think we’re the fastest at moving the ball,” Pepe Sierra says, unable to pick out any single player over another for specific praise; it’s been a complete team effort. “It's not just the starting eleven, when any player comes out of the team, and another comes in and plays well, it’s surprising and pleasing. Now at the moment we don't have Aleix Garcia, but we still score five goals against Sevilla.”

The season is far from over, but history has already been achieved, with mesmerizing results, milestones, and records. At the half way point of the campaign, no team other than Real Madrid and Barcelona has ever amassed as many points as Girona have this year. So what’s been the highlight for the fans, out of everything? “For me, the win away to Barça, that was something else,” Sierra explains. “Not only for the win, but the way we won, it was a beautiful recital. Incredible.”