Marked for Ignacio Blanco
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Aug 2028
Jan Castro breaks a bone — 30 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ignacio Blanco is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Tempers go at Girona
Ulises Delgado was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match26 Aug 2028
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Girona and Valencia, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Match26 Aug 2028
Three points for Girona, 4‑2 the final word against Valencia in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad28 Aug 2028
The manager makes an example of Abdul Mumin
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The terraces28 Aug 2028
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
A performance of 8.18 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
A performance of 8.08 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings24 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market24 Apr 2028
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad24 Apr 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Girona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Girona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bryan Gil is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match22 Apr 2028
Celta made Girona work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings24 Apr 2028
Marked 7.95 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Girona had the best player on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Apr 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Girona, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Yoel Lago keeps the receipts
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Girona may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market10 Apr 2028
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at Girona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bryan Gil is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Nobody could get near Bryan Gil
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 Apr 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ignacio Blanco and Girona agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Paulo Gazzaniga dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Match8 Apr 2028
A 1‑1 draw with Rayo Vallecano leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Market10 Apr 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Abel Ruiz’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market7 Feb 2028
Bryan Gil puts it in writing
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Girona, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market7 Feb 2028
Girona say no — this time
The offer from Atlético Madrid for Bryan Gil was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad7 Feb 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Girona may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match5 Feb 2028
No end in sight to Girona's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Girona has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Bryan Gil runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Tempers go at Girona
Portu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Loan watch7 Feb 2028
“I did not go to Almería to sit and watch. I want to come back to Girona and fight for my place.” 8 appearances in 28 matches say the rest.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Words at Girona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dávid Strelec is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match5 Feb 2028
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Oct 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Girona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Girona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bryan Gil is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Nobody could get near Portu
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match16 Oct 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Abel Ruiz’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Girona.
Squad18 Oct 2027
The manager makes an example of David López
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
The afternoon belonged to Mateu Morey
A mark of 7.90, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Loan watch18 Oct 2027
“I watch every Girona game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Alavés runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Market18 Oct 2027
Abel Ruiz linked with a move away
The name of Abel Ruiz keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Girona say nothing, which says plenty.
Squad18 Oct 2027
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Jul 2027
Álex Moreno breaks a bone — 122 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 122 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market5 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market5 Jul 2027
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Fernando Tapia is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
Market5 Jul 2027
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Market5 Jul 2027
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Ignacio Blanco is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 17 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
In brief
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Squad
Bryan Gil falls out with a teammate over standards
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Squad
Tempers go at Girona
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Boardroom
Intake day at the Girona academy