It was Montilivi that watched it, that lived it, and that would have loved a different ending. Montilivi that deserved it, too“Welcome to Miami,” the sign said. Scribbled in black pen on white cardboard and fixed to the fence by the stadium where long lines of tables were laid out and the atmosphere was building, it greeted them as they arrived – football fans heading to the biggest game of the year. Mostly, they strolled from town, through narrow, old streets, yellow ribbons attached to every lamppost, along the river where the houses overlooking the water are brightly coloured, not pastel, across the bridge and up a gentle hill in the sunshine. There, past concrete police controls was another sign,...
At the start of the season, Eibar, Getafe and Girona all had the same objective: survival. Now it can shift to EuropeThe alarm went off again at Ipurúa on Wednesday, siren echoing around the Ego valley as if there was an air raid coming, but it was nothing to fear. Although the noise assaults eardrums, loud, piercing and heard all across Eibar, it’s a source of comfort now, not concern. Cause for celebration, too. For years the siren wailed at 7.3am every morning to wake up workers employed in the Alfa metal factory, a cooperative where they made Smith and Wesson revolvers, Singer sewing machines and bicycles, until one day production was moved out of town. The factory was knocked...
Pablo Machín and his players have transformed the club and, with it, the town. This never used to be a football place focused on its own team. It is nowIt took Lionel Messi two seconds to work out what was going on, Pablo Maffeo says, and not very much longer for him to say sorry; he was just doing what he’d been told to do. It was September, FC Barcelona’s first ever visit to Montilivi in primera, and it wasn’t a whole lot of fun for either of them. Everywhere Messi went, Maffeo went too. There was no getting rid of him, so Messi wandered about, mostly staying out the way, and struck up conversation. He asked how old he...
As the crisis in Catalonia reached fever pitch outside the ground, the minnows of Girona beat Real Madrid in a symbolic but richly-deserved winPablo Machín stood by the table football in the middle of the Montilivi dressing room where two teams lined up rigidly in 3-3-4, one in blue, the other in white, and told his players – the real ones in red – they should be proud. He didn’t speak for long, just a few seconds standing there among the socks, bandages and bottles on the floor, and when he finished there was applause from everyone and for everyone. There was no cava, Girona’s coach said, but there was a celebration and, he admitted, euphoria. “Maybe it’s the coach’s...
Loud and leaping fans test the strength of Girona’s temporary stands as top-flight debut verges on perfection against formidable Atlético MadridOn 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...