Girona is leaving behind all the phases of sleep and is about to wake up in paradise. With five days left in the championship, competing in the next edition of the Champions League seems much more like logic than a chimera. Míchel and his dedicated disciples continue to conquer peaks and nothing and no one seems capable of standing in their way to history.
The people from Girona ended their bad dynamic away from Montilivi by winning at the Gran Canaria stadium after five consecutive defeats away from home, a victory with which they took a tremendous bite out of the classification to practically ensure their presence in the top four. In fact, Girona is already second, waiting for what Barça does tomorrow, who will visit Montilivi on Saturday in a duel full of incentives.
Míchel’s team ruthlessly attacked Las Palmas’ bad moment, which has already gone nine games without knowing victory but is living peacefully thanks to an extraordinary first leg of the League. It was not Girona’s best game but the maturity they have acquired as a team helped them suffer in bad moments and find the goal without great tactical displays.
The game was played for the first twenty minutes in yellow, with the Girona team unable to link two passes in a row and with several Canarian arrivals looking for the back of the opposing defense. In one of them, David López knocked down Moleiro and Figueroa Vázquez did not hesitate to award a penalty, a firm decision even after reviewing the play in the VAR at the request of Del Cerro Grande. But Sandro, as hard-working and fought as the goal, was unable to beat Gazzaniga, who deflected his shot with his face.
Once the initial difficulties were overcome, Girona began to mass the ball and step into Álvaro Valles’ area, although without much danger. In fact, the first goal came from a set piece. Kirian shamelessly grabbed Eric Garcia after a corner and the referee, once again convinced, pointed to the eleven meters. Dovbyk, like Sandro, also failed to beat the goalkeeper but this time, David López’s experience allowed him to get ahead of everyone and turn Valles’ rebound into a goal.
The goal-scoring difficulties that Las Palmas has had throughout the season were evident with the score against and Gazzaniga did not suffer excessively. At the beginning of the second half, Girona would also score their second goal. Figueroa Vázquez awarded the third penalty of the day for a stomp on Couto by Mika Mármol. The VAR called him again because he gave the impression that there was no contact but the Andalusian was confirmed and Dovbyk this time did not fail, establishing himself as top scorer.
From there, Míchel’s team went through the duel peacefully, with only a distant shot from Moleiro hitting the crossbar as the only scare. After the final whistle, all of Girona went up to the watchtower and confirmed in unison: “Champions in sight.”
0. Las Palmas: Álvaro Valles; Álex Suárez (Munir, min. 63), Coco, Mika Mármol, Sinkgraven (Sergi Cardona, min. 63); Javi Muñoz (Benito, min. 81), Perrone (Fabio, min. 78), Kirian; Marvin Park, Sandro (Marc Cardona, min. 63) and Moleiro.
2. Girona: Gazzaniga; Eric, David Lopez, Blind, Miguel; Aleix García; Yan Couto (Tsygankov, min. 70), Iván Martín (Solís, min. 89), Herrera (Arnau, min. 89), Savinho (Pablo Torre, min. 80); and Dovbyk (Portu, min. 70).
Goals: 0-1, min. 26: David Lopez. 0-2, min. 56: Dovbyk, penalty.
Referee: Jorge Figueroa Vázquez (Andalusian Committee). He showed a yellow card to the local player Mika Mármol (49) and to the visitors Dovbyk (36), Herrera (39) and Yan Couto (69).
Incidents: match of the thirty-third day of LaLiga EA Sports played at the Gran Canaria Stadium in front of 18,734 spectators. The kick-off was performed by a representation of the Canarian women’s futsal team that was champion of Spain in 1999. A minute of silence was observed for the recent deaths of Luis Jiménez Chirino, former director of UD Las Palmas (73 years old), and by the Gran Canarian journalist Pedro Guerra (49 years old).
