Domestic cups are sometimes the most entertaining competitions in football, because everything can happen: Without the high requirements of reaching first division and the regularity and excellence it demands, teams with radically different levels and budgets can meet face-to-face. And, as we said, everything can happen in just one match.
Girona was the surprise team in Spain last season: The Catalan team finished third in LaLiga, and for most of the competition was at the top, posing a real threat to Real Madrid and Barcelona. That allowed it to qualify for Champions League - where, sadly, they are almost guaranteed to be eliminated.
They are still one of the strongest teams at Spanish first division, eighth in LaLiga this year so far. However, they lost yesterday the place in Copa del Rey against Logroñés, a Segunda RFEF - fourth tier - team founded just fifteen years ago, which fell from second to fourth division in three years.
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Pol Arnau, local hero
Winning or losing the game yesterday means direct qualification or elimination from the tournament. And the match ended 0-0 and after added time, everything was solved in the penalty shootout.
The game (which is played at home for the lowest category team, in the capital of La Rioja region in Spain ended 4-3 in the penalties to the local team. And the most surprising thing of all was that it wasn't the usual goalkeeper who stopped the decisive penalty for <social>Logroñés</social>, but a right back, who offered himself to act as goalkeeper as they didn't have more changes.
Despite not being a goalkeeper, 19-year-old Pol Arnau stopped a shot and gave its team the victory. Arnau is actually son of Francesc Arnau, goalkeeper from FC Barcelona from 1998 to 2001, who died in 2021. After the game, Pol Arnau said that his father helped him stop that penalty and that he has his father in mind in every match.