On April 8, 2018, Imanol Alguacil made his Anoeta debut as a Real Sociedad coach. A week earlier he had made his debut on the Basque bench replacing Eusebio Sacristán, with a 0-0 draw at Eibar. On the day of his “home” debut, the next guest was Pablo Machín’s Girona FC, in the year of their debut in the First Division. If anything is remembered from that day, it is that Real won by five to zero.
More than four years have passed and yesterday Real Sociedad, also with Alguacil on the bench, scored five goals against the Girona team again. That first day there was talk of defensive passivity, yesterday everyone agreed that Míchel’s rear guard had been very soft and that they conceded many facilities, at least in three of the five goals conceded.
Yesterday’s match became the fourth match in which Girona FC has conceded the most goals in these fifteen years in the LFP. The data is only surpassed by the 6-1 in the Barça field and the 6-3 in the Real Madrid field, both in the 17/18 campaign; and equalized by the 5-2 against played at the UD Las Palmas field in the 12/13 season. Apart from these three records, no other time had a handle of goals been scored.
In other words, yesterday will be a game that will be remembered and not precisely for positive aspects, despite the fact that Girona FC had a very acceptable match in many phases of it.
And if there was a general feeling that more could have been done in defense yesterday, there is also the idea that even though the team had avoided some mistakes at the start of the championship, now the points in the classification would be more of seven
The absurd penalty in Valencia that allowed the 1-0 final; the lack of defensive forcefulness against Celta that allowed Iago Aspas’ goal that doomed Míchel’s team (0-1) or the assistance of Samu to Borja Iglesias so that the Betis striker made the definitive 2-1 are plays that they could have been avoided and now they hurt.
As much as the five goals yesterday against Real Sociedad.
