It took Lionel Messi two seconds to work out what was going on, Pablo Maffeo says, and not very much longer for him to say sorry; he was just doing what he’d been told to do. It was September, FC Barcelona’s first ever visit to Montilivi in primera, and it wasn’t a whole lot of fun for either of them. Everywhere Messi went, Maffeo went too. There was no getting rid of him, so Messi wandered about, mostly staying out the way, and struck up conversation. He asked how old he was – 20 – and whether he’d come from Man City – yes, he had – until eventually the Girona wing-back was withdrawn. As Maffeo sat on the bench, cameras caught him talking to team-mates, a grin appearing on his face. “You know what he said?” he smiled. “‘Playing like this is shit’.”



Well, there’s a first time for everything. And there’s a last time, too. After the game – which Girona lost 3-0 but in which Messi, already on nine league goals just six weeks into the season, hadn’t scored – Maffeo’s parents were approached outside the ground, their boy suddenly famous. “The most important thing is that they made friends,” his mum said. What, his dad was asked, did you make of your son following Messi round everywhere? The response was rapid. “And what makes you think it wasn’t Messi following him,” he replied.

Mr Maffeo smiled, mischief in his words, but this weekend again showed that it wasn’t so silly. Not just man-marking Messi – on Sunday night, the Argentinian left Betis in bits – but what he said. They might never have been in the first division before, but following is not really what Girona do; more often, it’s what others do to them. Right now, 11 teams follow them in the table, and out on the pitch, many more have – including two of the biggest of them all.

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Girona coach Pablo Machín began as youth coach at Numancia 17 years ago, moving to the B team and then the first team as assistant before taking over in 2011, heading to Girona in 2014. He has long believed in a 3-5-2 formation that seemed forgotten, but which he called a “badge of identity” and which, perhaps precisely because it is so out of step with what everyone else was doing, has proven startlingly problematic for opponents. So much so that they have worn that badge too. His team overrun, Zinedine Zidane tried to copy Girona in the second half of their meeting in week 10; his team overrun in week one, Diego Simeone, forewarned, tried it too this Saturday. It didn’t work for either of them. Back then, Girona defeated Real Madrid; now Girona went to the Wanda for the first time and became the fourth team to get a point there – with Barcelona, Madrid and Villarreal – when Portu scored an equaliser 15 minutes from the end.

But it wasn’t just that Girona had got a point; it was how they did it and how often they have done it. It was that Atlético, like Madrid, took the threat from a side that had ever been here before so seriously as to emulate them, shifting formation; that they had only one shot more than the visitors; and that at 1-1, Michael Olunga, the Kenyan striker and geospatial engineer who the week before had scored a debut hat-trick, taking a congratulatory call from the president post-game, might have got the winner only for Jan Oblak to race out of his box and send him flying. It was that while some criticised Simeone for withdrawing Diego Costa and Antoine Griezmann and trying to protect his team, Machín rightly insisted “the players he brought on [Koke, Gameiro, Vitolo] aren’t exactly cripples: they’d be starters at three-quarters of the teams in the league”, and it was that it was the second time Girona had faced Atlético and emerged unbeaten – the first time, on the opening night, they probably should have won. And it was that nobody has a better record against the Madrid sides and that they alone had scored two against Atlético.

Three now.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Girona pair Borja Garcia and Michael Olunga rise for a ball. Photograph: Francisco Seco/AP

At the end of the game, the players stood and applauded their fans, history made. “This is a point that feels like a victory,” Portu said. “To be behind at a stadium like this against a team that rarely lets in goals and play so well is very important.” As for Machín, he insisted: “This is a point that gives us great prestige because few teams are going to come here and get anything. We’re novices but we score in almost every game (they have failed to score just four times in 20 matches) and the impression we left was a good one.”

The impression they have left all season has been, and the point doesn’t just give them prestige, it might give them a new objective. At the start of the season Machín insisted: “I want to survive, any way we can”. As the second half of the season starts, Girona are a point off seventh – which, given the teams in the Copa del Rey quarters, is likely to be a European position. Survival was their only aim and now there is an eight-team, 11-point buffer zone between them and the relegation zone. Cristhian Stuani returned to Spain from Middlesbrough where he scored 11 in two seasons and is one short of that total already, with only Messi, Luis Suárez and Iago Aspas having scored more. Portu, the goalscorer, had never played in the first division before; not one Real Madrid player has as many as him.

Now owned by City and Pep Guardiola’s brother Pere, it is natural that Girona believe they can stay in the first division. Yet that should not diminish what they have done. So far, the City effect has been limited – of the loanees only Maffeo is a regular – and they have already come a long way. It feels like they belong now when it is only recently that they didn’t, the club’s sporting director describing what he found upon taking over as “darkness” and Machín recalling how people didn’t know whether to commiserate him when he arrived. He saved them from relegation and, two failed play-offs later, brought them up for the first time. They have transformed the club and, with it, the town too. This never used to be a football place, certainly not one that focused on its own team. It is now.

“It’s easy to ‘be’ Barcelona or Madrid; it’s hard to ‘be’ Girona,” Machín once said. This weekend Simeone, like Zidane, found out how hard. Machín told the story of how parents would see him walk past and tell their kids: “There’s the Girona coach.” The kids didn’t care. They didn’t know who he was and nor did anyone else. Now they do; now they’re copying him.

Talking points

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Messi celebrates a goal during the win at Betis. Photograph: Jose Manuel Vidal/EPA

• There was a moment late in the second half when Messi did something so silly, even for him, that you could hear the intake of breath all around the Benito Villamarín, then a roar, then applause. Betis were on their way to a 5-0 hammering by Barcelona – they’d actually been pretty good for the first 50 minutes or so – but, as Suárez said, they’d been “privileged” to see Messi play and they seemed to agree. In a game which the whole side impressed, Suárez and Sergi Roberto especially, Messi still stood apart. Afterwards, Joaquín stood analysing the match. “When you’re up against Messi, who …” he started to say. “Who …” he continued, laughing, “… well, there’s nothing you can say about him any more.” Betis goalkeeper Antonio Adán put it neatly: “He makes this sport better.”

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• Cristiano Ronaldo dived in where the studs were, headed the ball into the net, was kicked in the face, got up, blood running down his face, and walked towards the touchline with the doctor. On his way, he asked: “Is it bad?” The doctor pulled out his phone, switched it to selfie, and Ronaldo took a look, doing an “it’s over” gesture and going down the tunnel. It was, too. Although Nacho would still have time to add another, with eight minutes left and Madrid 6-1 up, victory was secure. Deportivo de La Coruña had scored first; Madrid had scored seven, the sixth of them that header from Ronaldo – his second. Before that, Gareth Bale got two, withdrawn to a standing ovation, and so eventually did Nacho – superb, yet again, and who you wouldn’t drop now, not even when Ramos comes back – while Luka Modric got one. For the first time since April, the BBC played together, even if it was for only 18 minutes. Not that everyone was happy – the Bernabéu whistled Karim Benzema as he came on, after injury. Still, at least they won and impressively so (even if Depor were dreadful), scoring the goals they’ve been missing lately. They had needed this, Zinedine Zidane admitted. “Madrid are Madrid again,” Marca said.

• Woof! Spanish football’s fastest player Inaki Williams scored this week’s best goal, lobbing a long volley into the net from the right side of the area against Getafe, a little like a side-footed Marco van Basten. “I’ve told him, if anyone asks, say you meant it,” Athletic goalkeeper Iago Herrerín laughed but Williams admitted he had been thinking about the cross and thinking about the shot and in the end “did a bit of both”. Whatever he did, it was bloody good. Not as good as what Lugo’s Juan Carlos did, mind you. And that line above needs to be altered: Williams actually scored this week’s second best goal. The best was an unstoppable shot hit first time from 65 metres that flew over Sporting Gijón goalkeeper Diego Marino and right into the corner. Which would have been wonderful anyway, but Juan Carlos is Lugo’s goalkeeper.

Yousef Teclab (@yousefteclab) When a goalkeeper scores a goal normally the opposition goalkeeper misjudges the bounce of the ball.



Not Lugo's Juan Carlos. What a strike this was. No mercy whatsoever to Sporting Gijon's Diego Mariño. (Video via @LaLiga) pic.twitter.com/RrRdI8tC4S

• Gabriel screamed and shouted in the referee’s face and got a yellow card … so he screamed and shouted some more and got another one. As he walked off, his manager Marcelino shot him a pained looked that said: idiot. Valencia had gone 1-0 up then hit the post and now it was 1-1, but as Marcelino put it “the red card changed everything”. Calleri scored the penalty that wound Gabriel up so much and Las Palmas secured a huge victory that gives them a glimmer of hope, four points from safety. “There’s still loads to improve,” Paco Jémez said, sitting in a blue shirt, blue jacket and bright pink tie, done in a big fat knot. “This is a fight against time.”

• On Sunday, Levante announced the signing of Saudi Arabian striker Fahad al-Muwallad. At the same time, from the same room in Riyadh, Villarreal announced they had signed Salem al-Dawarsi and Leganés welcomed Yahia al-Shehri. In total, nine Saudi Arabian players were signed in one go, on loan, by La Liga and assigned to clubs in the first, second and second B divisions, as part of an agreement they – the league, not the individual clubs – have with the Saudi football authorities to develop the game there. The league has declined to offer more information, like: in return for what? Or: who chose the players? Who paid for them? How much? And: will they play? Will they have to? But they did claim there had been a “rigorous” selection process, admit there would be no cost for the clubs, and note this was a good way of increasing visibility in “that part of the world”. It might be too cynical to ask if the clubs even wanted the players … or perhaps not when Sporting Gijón’s Twitter welcomed Alshabab Abdullah to the club when Al Shabab, his first name, is actually the name of the club he came from.