GIRONA“We did not expect to be, in mid-April, eight points above relegation. First, because we are a team that has just been promoted. Before the start of the League, the famous artificial intelligence gave us as last. But last last. And seeing how evenly matched the championship is at the bottom, it’s something to be proud of,” said David López minutes after Girona’s draw against Barça at the Spotify Camp Nou. One more point for Míchel’s team, eleventh in the standings and with a margin of almost three games (eight points) with respect to the relegation zone.
The team from Girona, which receives Elche in Montilivi this Sunday (2 p.m., Movistar LaLiga), is breaking all predictions thanks to a well-worked identity and a pleasant game proposal. Also those of artificial intelligence, which at the beginning of the year indicated it as the main candidate to go down to Second. Data doesn’t always explain everything. They don’t always get it right.
In August, the CIES Football Observatory tried to predict, based on numbers, statistics and percentages, how the season would go in the main European leagues. Created in 2005, it is a research group within the International Center for Sports Studies (CIES), an independent study center located in Switzerland and specialized in the statistical analysis of football. His method collects different values to make the final classification: the last two seasons of each team are studied (in this period of time, Girona has been in Segona), the experience of the footballers (the Girona have many debutants in the category) and the amount of money invested in the last signing market (the white-and-red sports management has spent little, because it has asked for many transfers). The sum of it all placed Girona cuer de Primera, number one candidate for relegation.
If you analyze the eleven with which Girona drew at the Camp Nou, you can see that Arnau, Santi Bueno and Javi Hernández had never played in Primera before this year. Iván Martín had done it six times and Castellanos, for example, had only excelled in the United States, at a lower level than in Spain. Gazzaniga, Oriol Romeu and Tsygankov had international experience, and Toni Villa and Borja García already knew what it was to compete in the League. David López, one of the signings of the summer, is the one who stands out the most in his presence in the elite.
Girona this year has invested around fifteen million euros in reinforcements, focusing especially on four men: Oriol Romeu (5.5 million), Tsygankov (5), Miguel Gutiérrez (4) and the transfer of Javi Hernández (0.5 ). The rest of the arrivals, between loans and owned footballers, have been for free. That’s why the forecasts pointed to him last. Wrongly, of course. It is not the only error of the artificial intelligence, which gave Madrid as champion and placed Barça third. Xavi’s team takes thirteen points from Ancelotti’s and takes the title. He placed Espanyol thirteenth and is in decline, and it doesn’t match with some of the teams involved in the bottom zone either: Elche would be out of danger, Sevilla in the Champions League, Valencia in mid-table and Cadiz and Mallorca in Second.
Míchel and Stuani: AI doesn’t always get it right
The most critical point of Míchel’s time in Girona was at the beginning of last year, when the Girona team, in Segona, occupied the relegation zone to Primera RFEF. On Matchday 10, in mid-October, the team fell at home against Huesca (1-3) and would still flirt with the red zone until the end of the month. At that point in the season, however, Quique Cárcel offered him renewal: the artificial intelligence revealed, as Ferran Soriano explained in June with the promotion in the pocket, that the dressing room was on the right track, despite the fact that the results didn’t prove it: “When things weren’t going well, the technicians did a very detailed analysis of what was happening on the field. We used data and artificial intelligence. And the results were overwhelming. “Don’t touch anything, don’t touch nothing because it’s going to be fine. We didn’t win this game or that game, but don’t touch anything.’ And we didn’t touch anything.” Girona was promoted.
Here the artificial intelligence, instead of simulating matches, got it right. Matches are simulated using a large database that includes various parameters. “Algorithms play many times. We even play a game a million times to see how many times what we think should happen happens. If you set up the game in one way, you play it a million times and in the most of the time what happens is what you think should happen, or what you wish would happen, and you win, it’s because you did it right. You may end up losing later in the actual game, but the analysis tells you that I was well prepared.” explains Soriano, general manager of the City Football Group.
With Stuani, however, Girona resorted to their own sense of smell, because the big data advised against its incorporation. “I remember making the squad and proposing his name – pointed out Pablo Machín – but they told us that his profile didn’t fit. Luckily we bet on him. The computer field recommends different players and from there you choose. But there is a very important thing that is intuition. That makes the difference.” The Uruguayan has become the top scorer in the club’s history.
