News Archive

Second division play-offs, semi-finals, second leg

Girona will meet Osasuna in this season’s final after they came from behind to beat Córdoba 3-1 in the second leg of their semi-final on Thursday. Xisco had scored twice in the Arcángel stadium a few days ago, and once again he got behind the defence to put the Andalusians ahead early on in the second half. However some ten minutes later Borja García made it all square with an angled shot, and with ten minutes to go Aday scored his team’s second with a shot which took a slight deflection off a defender to wrong-foot Razak. That took the tie into extra time, and under competition rules the Catalans would have won if there were no more goals, as they were the higher ranked side at the end of the season. Stankevicius got himself sent off though for a second bookable offence, and with three minutes to go Cristian Herrera beat Razak for a third time to make sure of the result. Girona (who have never played in the top flight) missed out on promotion last year with virtually the last kick of the season, but just twelve months later they are back in the running! (12.06.16)

Osasuna are through to the promotion play-off final after beating Gimnàstic Tarragona 2-3 in the second leg of their semi-final. An early goal by Naranjo gave the Catalans hope of overturning the 3-1 defeat from midweek, but with just over half an hour gone David García equalized, the defender heading in a De las Cuevas cross following a quickly taken free kick. After the restart strikes from Javier Flaño and Mikel Merino wrapped things up for the Pamplona based side, the first with an angled shot after Merino back-heeled a De las Cuevas pass in to his path, and the second after picking up a pass from Nino. That left Nàstic needing four in a quarter of an hour to turn things around, and although Juan Muñiz got another one back after Nauzet could only push out a shot from De la Espada, there was no way back. It was a massive disappointment for the home fans after their side came within a point of going up directly, although they can still hold their heads up high after a brilliant season in their first year after winning promotion from the second division B last summer. (11.06.16)