Loud and leaping fans test the strength of Girona’s temporary stands as top-flight debut verges on perfection against formidable Atlético Madrid
On the way out of the Free City of Braavos, over the river and to the south, leaving King’s Landing behind too, is a bar. Unlike the buildings and narrow streets of the old town of Girona, the setting for Game of Thrones, it’s nothing much and it’s not exactly medieval but it is the only one on Avinguda de Montilivi and the last stop en route, so a small crowd gathers dressed in red and white. On the window is a sign. “Stadium: half a kilometre,” it says. A few hundred metres further along concrete blocks moved into place by a forklift truck guard the road and beyond that, the arena rises up – much higher than it used to.
Half the stand is made of scaffolding and to the left there is more of it, erected over the seats and complete with a tarpaulin roof, the kind of structure temporarily set up for fiestas all over Spain. The stands were not there a few weeks ago; well into the summer, they still did not even have permission to build, so when they went up they went up fast. They had to: scene of 25 sieges, captured seven times, Girona has a 2,000-year history, 97,586 people, and the best restaurant in the world, according to Restaurant magazine, but until Saturday it had never had a first division football team. Until, a bit before seven, heading down the hill from the other side came Atlético Madrid.
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