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 and closer, Cristhian Stuani came to the rescue for permanence in La Liga with a header in the 90th minute. The draw even causes the Geronians to climb one spot and be sixteenth, two points from the red zone. There are four teams tied at 39 points, and Espanyol is now the one marking the salvation limit.

The match, however, far from attracting, caused deep 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 players came out to see what would happen, as if everything was already done. As if a draw was enough within the asylum that the lower part of La Liga 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 Geronians in a context of fighting for permanence, it was character – and not football – that made the team earn their living. 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 men like Portu and Stuani who untied the knot that had been inhibiting 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 did not foresee a decent succession for men so important to the locker room.

That the starting center forward, Vladyslav Vanat, was injured at the beginning of April was also another weight on the shoulders of a team that, since then, has begun to string together bad news and approach the edge of the fire. 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 was also injured. The Madrid 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, other times Joel Roca or the diminutive Argentine, and in the final stretch the eternal Stuani, but the Geronenses faced Rayo Vallecano without a forward who, at the very least, would put up a fight. If to this is added an alarming lack of dynamism in the game and that the mind begins to play tricks, causing each player to shrink a little more each week due to the tension they are experiencing, the mix cannot be positive. This, of course, is no excuse for failing to abide by the first commandment of staying up, which is none other than the energy that was not seen anywhere.

Rayo Vallecano, practically safe and with the euphoria of having qualified for the Conference League final, competed better, surely due to the simple opposing dynamics 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 being sensed. The white-and-red goalkeeper also deflected a free kick from Lejeune in a more advanced stage.

Stuani does what the virgin did not 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 player for the visiting team, was on the verge of taking advantage of a Chavarria turnover, but when he had already dribbled past the goalkeeper Batalla, he regretted that Óscar Valentín blocked his shot; Tsygankov, in the second half, arrived alone, but forced, to an action at the far post that ended up being deflected.

The virgin almost appeared 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 Geronians 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.