Stuani's eternal miracles save Girona from a big problem in Vallecas

GironaIt couldn't be anyone else. With Girona losing after a goal by Alemao in the 86th minute and relegation getting closer, Cristhian Stuani came to the rescue for permanence in the First Division with a header in the 90th minute. The draw means the Geronians remain in seventeenth position, two points from the danger zone. There are four teams tied at 39 points, including Espanyol.

The match, however, far from attracting, caused a profound disappointment. More or less everyone imagined that Girona would bite, press high, or show the intensity that the current championship situation demands. Well, no, Míchel's team came out to see what would happen, as if everything was already done. As if a draw was enough within the asylum that the bottom of the First Division has become. It didn't seem like Girona was a team fighting for their lives. It didn't seem like their continuity in the elite hung by a thread.

Unlike last year, to describe the most recent example of the Gerundenses in a context of fighting for survival, it was character – and not football – that made the team earn its keep. It was effort, the act of going for every ball as if it decided, because it did decide, the future of a suffering locker room. It was players like Portu and Stuani who untied the knot that had been holding back a collective full of good names but to whom most lacked a spirit of sacrifice. A year later, Portu cannot help due to a serious injury and Stuani is only available for the final minutes, which in Vallecas was worth gold. But this is a problem, as is the fact that the planning has not foreseen a decent succession for men so important to the locker room.

That the starting center forward, Vladyslav Vanat, broke at the beginning of April was also another weight on the shoulders of a team that, since then, has begun to chain bad news and approach the brink of disaster. In fact, the three consecutive defeats that Míchel's team had accumulated coincide with the departure of a reference figure in the attack, because Abel Ruiz also got injured. The Madrid-born coach, until his return home, had opted for the mobility of Claudio Echeverri, but in Vallecas he went further and preferred to play without a nine.

At times it was Ounahi, at others Joel Roca or the small Argentine, and in the final stretch the eternal Stuani, but the Geronenses faced Rayo Vallecano without a forward who, at the very least, would cause trouble. If to this is added an alarming lack of dynamism in the game and that the mind starts to play tricks, causing each player to shrink a little more each week from the tension they are experiencing, the mix cannot be positive. This, of course, is no excuse for failing to adhere to the first commandment of survival, which is none other than the energy that was not seen anywhere.

Rayo Vallecano, practically saved and with the euphoria of having qualified for the Conference League final, competed better, surely due to the simple opposing momentum of the two teams. They had the clearest chances to break the deadlock, but Camello, the most outstanding player for the locals, was not accurate. He had three, especially a one-on-one just before halftime that Gazzaniga spat out when the worst was already feared. The white-and-red goalkeeper also deflected a free-kick from Lejeune in a more advanced stage.

Stuani does what the virgin didn't do

For the three points to fly to Catalonia, then, an isolated action or some unexpected stroke of luck had to be found. Joel Roca, the best piece for the visiting side, was on the verge of taking advantage of a loss by Chavarria, but when he had already dribbled past the goalkeeper Batalla, he regretted that Óscar Valentín blocked his shot; Tsygankov, already in the second half, arrived alone, but forced, to an action at the far post that ended up wide.

The virgin was about to appear after a tangled play in Rayo's area, in which Guillermo Cuadra thought he saw a handball by the aforementioned Valentín. Half of Girona must have celebrated the decision, until they saw the first replay of the play and realized that the infraction had been the fruit of the referee's imagination. Perhaps the virgin reconsidered and turned back, seeing the panorama.

It must have gone so far that Alemao, when the Geronenses already considered the draw good, beat Gazzaniga to put the score at 1-0. Until Stuani said enough and remembered that, in Girona, the saint they pray to the most bears his name: the Uruguayan, who had just come on, rose in the 90th minute to rescue a great point and live the umpteenth chapter of his endless love story.