Fans of Spanish football will be accustomed to seeing Real Madrid and a certain Catalan club battle it out at the top of La Liga – only this season that team from northeastern Spain isn’t Barcelona.
At the start of the league season in August, Ignasi Mas-Bagà was hoping his team could avoid a costly relegation from Spanish soccer's top tier that would badly damage the club’s growth plans for years. Few people are more pleased — and genuinely shocked— than Mas-Bagà to see the team from the northeast corner of Spain leading the standings ahead of powerhouses Real Madrid and Barcelona one-third of the way through the season. Girona entered the latest round as the outright leader before Madrid provisionally moved top Sunday.
Girona threw down the gauntlet to Spain's big two who meet in the Clasico on Saturday with a 1-0 win over Celta Vigo on Friday to move top of La Liga.Girona dominated the ball but Celta were hard to break down, sturdy under Benitez, although they have just one win in 11 matches.
Lionel Messi’s involvement in a 1-0 win over Paraguay last week doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be fit for Argentina’s next game in World Cup qualifying against Peru. Messi played most of the second half against Paraguay last Thursday despite struggling with muscular pains in the weeks leading up to the game. Meanwhile in Brazil, Neymar is under fire for his lackluster performance in a 1-1 draw against Venezuela last week that ended with some fans throwing popcorn at the Arena Pantanal in Cuiabá.