2024-01-02 20:45:41
GIRONANow that 2024 begins with a Girona-Atlético de Madrid game on Wednesday evening in Montilivi (9.30pm, Movistar LaLiga) that could make Míchel’s men winter champions, it is necessary to do a memory exercise. Because the years pass and life evolves, but in Girona one fact remains immovable: Cristhian Stuani continues to be the team’s top scorer.
The Uruguayan survivor, a legend in the Catalan city at the height of Saint Narcís, his patron, has also written a list of resolutions, like most of us when we change the year. Stuani, relegated to a substitute role that does not do justice to the statistics, wants to achieve two more milestones that will accentuate his legacy in the next twelve months: to become the footballer who has played the most matches in the history of the club in categories professionals and be part of the first white-and-red squad to participate in European competitions. Three matches separate him from the first record; for the second he has a margin of seventeen points.
These two records will be added to an endless list of achievements; the last of which, to have become the pixichi of the team the last seven years. All, since their arrival. The Uruguayan number 7 was Girona’s top scorer in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. And, of course, this made him, a year and a half ago, the top scorer in history of the club Almost 94 years of history for him to arrive and tear it apart. Montilivi will never see a player like him again.
It’s funny to remember how the big data he advised against signing it. Luckily Pablo Machín and Quique Cárcel saw it clearly. Stuani was the star signing in the summer of 2017, when Girona was about to face its first adventure in the elite. Today he shares leadership with Real Madrid after some dark years in Segona in which the Uruguayan continued at the club, in a demonstration of love and commitment that seems from another time.
One after the other, all those who have tried to compete with Stuani, who has already become an iconic figure and with an impact that cannot even be measured, have remained in the background. In 2017, despite making his debut in August (with a double precisely against Atlético de Madrid in the Primera premier), he drew with Porto, who competed all calendar year, with nine goals. 2023 has outscored Dovbyk, one of the revelations of the League, 13 to 11. Stuani in 2017 was 31 years old. He is now 37.
Stuani’s goal-scoring impact at Girona
2017 (Stuani debuted in August)
2017 (Stuani debuted in August)
2017 (Stuani debuted in August)
In 2018 he scored 23; in 2019, 25; in 2020, 17; in 2021, 22; and in 2022, 15. In between, he had time to score the goal that gave the Supercopa de Catalunya against Barça. He was a bit of a second-teamer and got promoted to Tenerife, scoring the first goal. It hasn’t all been pretty along the way, but he always says it’s been worth it.
Retiring is one more round
The end is coming, because it is inevitable, but there is still a little left to continue enjoying who is already another Girona. Stuani, who has also been on the verge of leaving Girona several times in all these years, has decided to retire wearing the white-and-red shirt and a shield that is his own. “It would be a dream to retire at the club that I have defended the most and for which I have a commitment that everyone knows. There would be nothing more beautiful than retiring at a club where I have made history and where they have shown me the love, which has been reciprocal because I have also given everything. I have a great feeling for the club. A lot,” he confesses.
124 goals in 231 games and the intact illusion of those who experience things as if they were the first time, an exception that Girona has turned into a routine. This Wednesday evening he can be the winter champion, something that has never happened before. The melody of the Champions League is already playing on the horizon. And Stuani, he laughs, just imagining it. Always laughing, lately. Obviously.
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