Second in La Liga tied on points with Real Madrid, the small Girona club “can aspire to win La Liga” declared FC Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez on Saturday, on the eve of the derby between the two Catalan teams.
“Girona, to everyone’s surprise, is leader or co-leader. But for us, it’s not a surprise,” Xavi said at a press conference. “It’s a dynamic team, with a great coach, a system similar to ours.”
“We always want to press high, while Girona varies and can form a low block. But we are looking for roughly the same thing: to dominate, to have possession of the ball, to attack… So the two teams are similar in that sense,” he added.
The Catalan technician is wary of the Gironist “individualities”, including the Brazilian winger Savinho (on loan from Troyes) and the two Ukrainian internationals Dovbyk and Tsygankov.
Barça, which took third place from Atlético Madrid last week (1-0) has the opportunity on Sunday (9 p.m.) to come back one step behind its neighbor and put itself back in the title race.
Asked about the absence of his goalkeeper Marc-André Ter Stegen, who had back surgery and was unavailable for several weeks, Xavi retorted that there was “no question of recruiting a goalkeeper”, placing “his confidence” in the inexperienced Inaki Pena to take over as interim.
The Blaugrana coach also spoke after statements from his president Joan Laporta, who assured that the club would soon begin negotiations with Manchester City and Atlético to try to keep the two Portuguese Joao Félix and Joao Cancelo:
“We are very satisfied with both. I think they have adapted very well and are performing very well. We will see what happens in the future, but it is clear that we would like to keep them beyond this season,” he summarized.
An operation which currently seems complicated for Barcelona, still in financial difficulty, with Atlético demanding at least 70 million euros for Joao Félix according to the Spanish press.
