Quique Álvarez is playing his credibility (and something more) at Girona

GironaThree months after the start of the competition, Girona is still a prototype of what it was sold as being. “The machine says that this is an accident, that we will be in the Second Division for a year and we will go back up,” Ferran Soriano, one of the entity's owners, said in the summer. When he referred to the machine, he was talking about the scientific programs with which the City Football Group works. There, a complete and exhaustive database broke down for them how other teams throughout history had managed to ascend to the First Division the year after having been relegated. “The machine is running and is enthusiastic,” he added.

Today, that machine seems broken and will enter into a crisis this Saturday if it strings together a third consecutive defeat in Oviedo (9 p.m., LaLigaTV Hypermotion), with which the scenario will change completely for Quique Álvarez, the coach chosen in the summer to face the new reality and who is playing for much more than his credibility: if the results continue not to arrive, he could be dismissed. His was already an enigmatic choice, on the part of Quique Cárcel, who met with a lot of coaches to end up making the decision, after a good month, to stick with someone who was already at the club directing the reserve team.

50 million euros without results

But the results and, above all, the feelings indicate that something is not going well. Girona is eighth and is drifting away from the direct promotion spots, six points behind, which could be eight if Castellón wins their pending match. The Gironins have lost their last two games, in which, furthermore, they have not found the back of the net. Of course, not all the responsibility lies with the coach. The management of those in charge has not been the best and the current situation is too conditioned by the past: there are players singled out to make a difference who are failing in terms of performance and have barely justified their signing. Names that arrived in the year of the Champions League and do not offer guarantees even in the Second Division, even though they meant a disproportionate economic cost. The investment for Abel Ruiz, Bryan Gil, Yáser Asprilla, and Van de Beek exceeds 33 million, apart from a generous salary, and for Vanat, who arrived the following summer, 15 were paid. It is almost 50 million for a forward line that today would not even make the play-off for promotion to the First Division.

During the transfer market conflict, with many players wishing to leave and others refusing to play, Álvarez was a good group peacemaker, but, after more than twenty matches, between friendlies and official games, with almost 2,000 minutes of playing time, and with countless training sessions in their legs and heads, Girona still does not know how it plays nor what its identity is on the pitch.

Defensively, it is not solid enough, it does not apply good collective pressure, it is outnumbered in midfield, and opponents easily take advantage of lapses and mistakes. Offensively, it does not have a clear ball exit and also does not present arguments in static attack: it improvises, makes poor decisions, and ends up gambling everything individually, like someone flipping a coin in the air. Of course, it has virtues, especially when running in open space, where it knows how to take advantage of the opponent's disorganization. The other main weapon is that it is competitive and does not drop out of games. A characteristic that should not be celebrated, because it is the minimum that the strongest team economically in the category should come with as standard.

The dismissed precedents

The club acknowledges that the patience shown with Míchel Sánchez over the last two years is unusual. Míchel was kept on because he was Míchel and had achieved what he had achieved at Girona. Any other coach who didn't mean as much to the organization would have ended up unemployed, especially last season.

Until now, taking into account the context of the relegation, the situation in the summer, and the reasonable margin of time Álvarez needed to create a proper project, the coach has not faced excessive pressure, beyond that which already exists to return to the First Division, which is not insignificant. But the two defeats, the weakness compared to the top-tier teams, and the feeling of not progressing at the proper speed have sounded the first alarms. A defeat in Oviedo would leave the team very wounded before facing Eibar. All are direct rivals, such as Almería, Mallorca, and Castellón, against whom Girona has a terrible record of one point out of nine. The reaction cannot wait.

Cárcel has been the red-and-white sporting director for more than a decade and has always been characterized by generating trust. He has only dismissed two coaches with the season already underway: Juan Carlos Unzué, precisely after a defeat in Oviedo, enjoyed 12 matches; Pep Lluís Martí, 23. Both were there during the 2019-20 campaign, when, as now, the team was coming down from the First Division and was in a hurry to get back up.