Can Catalan club Girona finish their astonishing season by taking their grand history to the top of Spain’s La Liga and force their way into European football?
Girona, Spain – Decked out with Girona’s flags, signed shirts and banners, the Graner bar is home to the Penya Gironina, the club’s biggest fan club.
Wearing the team’s red-and-white shirts, a mix of greying heads, middle-aged women and young boys and girls gathered here to watch their team playing away to Celta Vigo in La Liga.
All relishing their improbable rise to the summit of Spanish football.
The Graner is in a drab suburb of this northeastern city, whose centre boasts beautiful medieval architecture which attracted 8.5 million tourists last year.
In the same suburb is Estadio Montilivi, the club’s pocket-sized stadium which fits only 14,000 fans, about a sixth of the size of neighbouring Barcelona’s Nou Camp home.
With their Catalan counterparts adrift in third place, Girona, with only one Costa Brava Cup to boast as silverware, are defying all odds to vie with Real Madrid – 35-time Spanish champions and 14-time Champions League winners – for the La Liga title.
Tickets, while the club languished for years in the lower leagues, were once difficult to give away. Now, every game sold out.
“The first thing to tell you is: Always watch Girona,” Graham Hunter, an expert on Spanish football, told Al Jazeera.
“They are a hell of a rollercoaster ride – always on the attack with apparently very little commitment to defending, with a thrilling and swashbuckling style in equal measure.
“In short: They’re fun. Really good fun.”
