BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — The lowest of the lows of Barcelona’s trophyless campaign last season was when it was spanked not once, but twice, by the formerly modest Girona.
Girona dealt Barcelona a pair of stinging 4-2 defeats as the club partly owned by Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi ownership emerged as one of the surprise packages of European soccer. It finished the Spanish league in third place, just behind Barcelona in second, and classified for the Champions League for the first time.
Those embarrassing losses to a fellow Catalan club played a part in the downfall of Xavi Hernández as Barcelona’s coach.
Barcelona is under new management — Hansi Flick — and will visit a new-look Girona on Sunday aiming to make it five wins in as many games with the German coach.
Flick has a team with some important changes led by the arrival of a more dynamic Dani Olmo for the departed Ilkay Gundogan. Olmo, fresh from helping Spain win the European Championship, has fit right in with the club he belonged to as a youth player.
Olmo scored in his first two games for Barcelona before the international break and is clicking as its interior attacking midfielder flanked by Spain teenage phenom Lamine Yamal and an in-form Raphinha.
The 36-year-old Robert Lewandowski, twice the age of Yamal, has made a superb start under Flick, who coached him at Bayern Munich where they won the Champions League. The Poland striker has four goals in as many rounds to lead La Liga.
The only downside to Barcelona’s start has been the injuries in midfield. Frenkie de Jong has yet to return since an injury that caused him to miss Euro 2024 with the Netherlands. Gavi Páez is still recovering from a serious leg injury, and youngster Marc Bernal, who had impressed under Flick, will miss the rest of the season after rupturing an ACL.
But this Girona is not the one that out-gunned Barcelona.
After exploding onto the European stage, the club lost several of its best players in the summer.
Artem Dovbyk, the league’s top scorer last season, left for Roma. Explosive winger Savinho moved to Manchester City, right back Yan Couto went to Borussia Dortmund, and midfielder Aleix Garcia joined Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen.
Barcelona recovered two players on loan, defender Éric García and midfielder Pablo Torres, while one player has gone the other way: Holding midfielder Oriol Romeu was sent back to Girona one year after it signed him away.
Girona, importantly, kept coach Míchel Sánchez and other key players like Miguel Gutiérrez, Iván Martín and Daley Blind. It also brought in forwards Abel Ruíz, Bryan Gil and Arnaut Danjuma, along with Manchester United midfielder Donny van de Beek.
And Girona has shown it can still click in attack in a 4-0 win over Osasuna and a 2-0 win at Sevilla in the previous two rounds.
Real Madrid will play at Real Sociedad on Saturday. It is in second place at four points behind leader Barcelona.
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
