To queue like everyone else: the new reality of Girona

GironaTenerife brings back beautiful memories for Girona, which is where they celebrated their second promotion to the First Division in 2022. Now, however, with the new reality following the drop to the Second Division, what this Monday's duel (9 PM, Esport3) causes them are headaches. The cuts following the relegation are fully affecting the squad's travel, which requires three days to go and return. A logistics issue that they already suffered in Cádiz and that has the squad annoyed, as with the loss of their category they have said goodbye to the comfort of charters and are traveling on regular flights.

The travel plan for the Girona footballers is arduous: they go by bus from the Vilablareix Sports City to Barcelona airport, queue like everyone else to check in their luggage, wait at the terminal until the regular flight takes off, and, once at their destination, they collect their equipment and another bus awaits them to take them to the hotel where they are staying, and, at the scheduled time, they head to the pitch. When the match is over, they do the same journey, but in reverse. They always travel a day before and, if the match is played late, they have to return the following day, meaning they are away from home for more than 48 hours. To play in Tenerife, they will leave this Sunday and will not return until Tuesday.

Until now, Girona traveled by charter flight and departed from Girona airport, which is only seven minutes from the Sports City. Life was much easier for the Girona players, who did not have to worry about suitcases and flew as soon as the match ended to get home as soon as possible, often at dawn. But now that is over. Each charter flight cost the club between 60,000 and 70,000 euros, and with the budget reduction, they have cut back on travel expenses. The squad has already raised a hue and cry, both in public and in private, to at least try to recover the charter for the longest trips. They don't just want this so they don't have to spend so many hours traveling back and forth, but they also believe that all of this affects their rest and, therefore, their performance. The club, however, considers that they have enough margin for recovery, because now, unlike the elite, there are no matches during the week. In the Second Division, games are only played on weekends.

The Girona players began flying by charter during the COVID-19 era, when all teams lived in a bubble and wanted to avoid infections. Those charters were paid for by the League, so it did not affect the organization's budget. Before, Girona had already played in the First Division, but traveled by bus, AVE, and regular flights. With the second promotion to Tenerife, they continued to do it that way, which changed with the arrival of the Champions League. From then on, it was a custom that has been completely cut off this summer.

These trips that seem endless are the day-to-day normality for practically all Second Division teams. Without going any further, Sabadell played in Ceuta on Saturday: Ferran Costa's team flew to Jerez on Thursday, and were in Algeciras on Friday. They are not returning until this Sunday, the same day that Girona makes the journey to Tenerife. In total, four days.

Mallorca is the only team in the category that usually flies with charters: last Sunday they left Montilivi at a quarter past 11 at night, and went to Girona airport to head home. Almeria does it too, but with less regularity. The contrast is provided by clubs like Leganes or Albacete: when they finished their duels in Girona, they returned to their homes by bus, just as they had come. The fastest bus from Girona to Albacete takes more than nine hours on the road.

There have been no dismissals

This is the main change that Girona has undergone in its return to the Second Division. The club has not made any layoffs during the summer, neither regarding the technical structure, nor in the internal sphere. It has wanted to maintain the same organization, because the forecast is to promote immediately. Something similar already happened in 2019, with the first relegation. The general blow did not arrive until the second season in the Second Division, after losing the play-off final, all of it aggravated by the pandemic. There, many anonymous workers did lose their jobs.

This, for the moment, has not happened and the club values it, because many other entities try to stop the blow by cutting personnel from a lot of sectors. At Girona, there are the same people working in the First Division as in the Second, both regarding the technical staff, with the same volume of physiotherapists and analysts, and regarding the different areas of the organizational chart, whether in finance, commercial, operations, marketing, communication, strategy, infrastructure, and legal. The bet includes promotion: the milestone that the footballers who have lost privileges in their travels will have to achieve.