With revenge on mind, Barcelona visit Girona

The lowest of the lows of Barcelona’s trophyless campaign last season was when it was spanked not once, but twice, by the formerly modest Girona.

Girona dealt Barcelona a pair of stinging 4-2 defeats as the club partly owned by Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi ownership emerged as one of the surprise packages of European football. It finished the Spanish league in third place, just behind Barcelona in second, and classified for the Champions League for the first time.

Those embarrassing losses to a fellow Catalan club played a part in the downfall of Xavi Her nández as Barcelona's coach.


Barcelona is under new management — Hansi Flick — and will visit a new-look Girona on Sunday aiming to make it five wins in as many games with the German coach.

Flick has a team with some important changes led by the arrival of a more dynamic Dani Olmo for the departed Ilkay Gundogan. Olmo, fresh from helping Spain win the European Championship, has fit right in with the club he belonged to as a youth player.

But this Girona is not the one that out-gunned Barcelona.

After exploding onto the European stage, the club lost several of its best players in the summer.

Artem Dovbyk, the league’s top scorer last season, left for Roma. Explosive winger Savinho moved to Manchester City, right back Yan Couto went to Borussia Dortmund, and midfielder Aleix Garcia joined Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen.