Terrible news for Espanyol in what has been a very promising season. Javi Puado will undergo surgery this week and will miss the remainder of the campaign due to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, as the club announced in a statement. This devastating diagnosis comes after a challenge during Sunday's match. against Levante at the Ciudad de Valencia, in which the Espanyol captain played only three minutes.

Javi Puado (Barcelona, ​​​​1998) is the son of a striker from Alcalá de Henares who arrived in Barcelona thanks to Jaume Creixell and stayed for love. Trained at La Masia and in the Cornellà youth academy, he has been playing for Espanyol for over a decade, the club of his life and where he wants to leave his mark. The hero of the promotion to the First Division against Oviedo and of last season's agonizing salvation, he is very clear that he would reject Barça. Just renewed with the parakeet team, which has made an effort to turn him into its straw man and the "ideal captain" of a project that is looking up after years of wandering in the wilderness.

For the second Sunday in a row, Pere Milla unleashed ecstasies among the blue and white fans. In the Basque Country, the iconic striker from Lleida, with the hair of a cult singer, found the net again and, within minutes of the match, declared Espanyol's state of bliss, who had Real Sociedad on the ropes in a brilliant first hour. It was short-lived because a defensive mishap turned everything upside down in a highly emotional duel that left Manolo González's team tasting bittersweet wine, as they took only a point from their visit to Real Sociedad.

It's not yet official, but it will be very soon: Javi Puado will renew his contract with Espanyol. After months of uncertainty and rumors, the Blue and Whites' second captain, whose contract expires on June 30th and who has been free to negotiate his future since January 1st, will remain linked to the club of his life. He has had no shortage of offers, but neither Sevilla nor Real Sociedad nor the petrodollars from Saudi Arabia have convinced Espanyol's top scorer, hero of last season's promotion and of the agonizing permanence of this year, sealed with a goal and an assist from the Barcelona striker against Las Palmas.

Espanyol's summer market will have two undisputed protagonists, the two main architects of the permanence. On the one hand, Joan Garcia, a series that will be resolved when one of the clubs willing to pay his release is able to entice him. The Cornellà-El Prat offices have been considering his departure for months, and now we just have to wait and see what his destination will be. Meanwhile, and no less important, the renewal of Javi Puado, considered the priority deal of this market.

If Espanyol is close to survival with six games left in La Liga, it's largely thanks to having become the team with the best shooting in Europe. And that's no exaggeration. Manolo González's men are the most accurate shooters in Europe's top five leagues. They are the team that needs to shoot the fewest times on target to find the back of the net: they score a goal every 2.34 shots on target. They narrowly surpass Newcastle United (2.35) and two Champions League semi-finalists, Inter Milan (2.38) and Barça (2.44), who have the same ratio as Borussia Dortmund.

Javi Puado has gone from being a good complement to the scoring strikers to Espanyol's most decisive attacking player. The Catalan striker, who is two months away from the end of his contract has not yet decided his future, has taken a step forward this season. Without a Batman to complement him, this year it's the eternal Robin who is assuming the offensive leadership of a team in which, since his debut, he has never been the star or the top scorer.