Girona conquered Catalonia with a 4-2 away win in Barcelona.
İlkay Gündoğan (center) doesn’t want to believe Barcelona’s ugly home defeat. PDO
Even last season, Barcelona was the audience magnet of the Spanish league.
The average home attendance was 56,304, but everyone knew it would drop this season.
The reason was quite understandable: the home field Camp Nou, which remained an antique concrete colossus, had to be completely renovated, and the team found an emergency home in Barcelona’s former Olympic stadium.
Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companies, named after the Catalan politician’s municipality, has a capacity of just over 54,000.
However, what is worrying is that the club has not been able to sell it out even once. For example, the first El Clásico of the season gathered 50,112 spectators, and the top game played against Atlético a week ago only 34,568 fans.
On Sunday, Barcelona got help with ticket sales, because they were opposed by their Catalan neighbor Girona, who brought their own strong group of supporters to the Montjuic mountain.
Despite that, only 42,848 spectators came to watch the provincial derby.
Cold ride in the derby
They saw how Girona mocked its rich neighbors. First, the Ukrainian duo Viktor Tsyhankov–Artem Dovbyk broke away from the Barça defense in the 12th minute. Tsyhankov passed and Dovbyk finished the opening goal through the post.
The story continues after the picture
Girona’s Artem Dovbyk (right) celebrates his opening goal with his teammates. PDO
to Robert Lewandow brought the hosts even further by pushing Raph corner kick into the net, but the defender went into the break already with Girona leading 2–1 by Miguel Gutiérrez after a nice top corner pull.
The budding defeat had the home crowd already whistling to themselves. Criticism grew when the veteran striker Cristhian Stuani won Ronald Araújo in the head ball fight.
The game tool was still a topper Jules Koundén within reach. Girona Valery however, caught the ball from the Frenchman’s feet and shot the winning goal.
İlkay Gündoğan The 2-3 reduction was only created in the additional time given by the referee, it remained an insignificant consolation goal, because Stuani still had time to hit the final numbers 2-4.
The stinging derby loss will surely shake the head coach of Barça Xavi ball, because no one can accept that Catalonia’s football leadership is somewhere outside the capital.
With their away win, Girona also went two points clear at the top of La Liga, as Real Madrid drew 1-1 with Real Betis in Sevilla on Saturday.