Little Girona’s hopes of “doing a Leicester” in La Liga looked a little better after beating Xavi’s Barcelona 4–0 on Sunday night at the Olympic Stadium. They are now back on top of the league.

The Catalan underdogs had never beaten Barcelona in six league games before this one, but they deserved to win because coach Michel, who was in charge of his 100th game in the top flight, was smarter than Xavi the whole time.

They got off to a good start when Viktor Tsygankov crossed the ball for Artem Dovbyk to score and put the guests ahead after 12 minutes.

Robert Lewandowski climbed over Girona players and his teammate Ronald Araujo in the 19th minute to head in Ilkay Gundogan’s corner kick and tie the game.

But just before halftime, Girona took the lead again when Miguel Gutierrez scored a goal from just inside the penalty area. Gutierrez was turned down by Real Madrid even though he played well for them in the Uefa Youth League. 

He is Girona’s chosen left-back, but he doesn’t play there very often. In the first half, he was too much for Barcelona as a roaming striker.

In the second half, Barcelona tried to tie the game, but Girona scored first on the hour mark. It was a brilliant move by Michel to bring on Valery Fernandez and Cristhian Stuani, who then scored to make it 3-1. 

Once Girona took the first step, it was the Uruguayan who flicked goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga’s long kick down the field into Valery’s path. Valery did the rest, and Barcelona was no longer in the game.

Xavi brought on Yamal Lamine and Ferran Torres. In the 92nd minute, Lamine crossed the ball for Gundogan to score with a header. Then it looked like Girona would have to hold on for the points, but they kept pushing forward, and when Stuani finished off another great move down the left, the score was 4-2 and the game was over.

Frenkie de Jong said, “It’s now seven points between Girona and Barcelona.” “We didn’t play well enough tonight, but there’s still more than half the season left.”

Barcelona and Girona will indeed have a lot of time to catch up, but the way things are going now, it doesn’t look like either team will.

They played better than Barcelona and deserve to win their first game ever against the current La Liga champions.

They may not win the championship, but after 16 games, no one can deny that they have become the team that everyone else needs to watch out for.