PREVIEW: Girona v FC Barcelona

FC Barcelona have collected all 12 points from their first four Liga games, but Sunday brings perhaps the biggest test so far. The short trip up the road for the 4.15pm CEST kick-off is the first this season against one of the other sides that is playing in the 2024/35 Champions League that gets started in just a few days' time.

Barça travel to Monaco on Thursday, while the day before Girona have a glamorous start to their first ever European campaign when they visit PSG at the Parc des Princes.

It's the first time ever that Catalonia has two teams competing in Europe's premier club competition. And last season's encounters between the sides were unquestionably fabulous adverts for football in this part of the world, producing six goals each. Sadly, however, on both occasions it was Girona who ended up taking the points, both times by 4-2 scorelines, having never won this derby encounter before.

But a lot has changed since those games. For a start, Barça now have a new manager, Hansi Flick, and under the German they have yet to drop a point in a competitive fixture.

New-look Girona

Girona, meanwhile, are a much-changed side. As happens so often when a less glamorous club has such a stunning season as they did, ending up an unprecedented third in the table, a number of their stars have been snapped up by other sides. Those include the man who topped the Liga goalscoring rankings, Artem Dovbyk (Roma) and also Aleix Garcia (Bayer Leverkusen), while loanees Savinho (Manchester City), Yan Couto (Borussia Dortmund), Eric García and Pablo Torre (Barça) have all returned to their parent clubs.

But others have come in their place. The rearguard has been bolstered by goalkeeper Pau López and defenders Francés and Krejci, while going forward they have brought in a tasty-looking combination of experience (Van de Beek, Bryan Gil, Danjuma and Abel Ruiz) and young promises (Miovski, Misehouy and Yasser Asprilla). They have also acquired Oriol Romeu on loan from Barça, but he is ineligible for this game due to a 'fear clause' included in the deal.

Perhaps most importantly, the mastermind behind last season's exploits, coach Míchel, is still there. He faced a difficult job getting all those new faces to combine into a coherent unit, and the first two games of Girona's season reflected that. But a 4-0 trouncing of Osasuna and an impressive 2-0 win away to Sevilla in their last two outings have silenced the critics who suggested that last season's exploits were a one-off. Girona clearly intend to keep the party going... 

New kit

Barça will be playing this one on their brand-new 'Black Barça' second strip. And hopefully the change of colours won't mean a change of form. After starting their campaign with three narrow escapes that all ended in 2-1 wins, they then blitzed their way to 7-0 victory over Real Valladolid, with Raphinha claiming the first ever hat-trick of his career, helping him to the Liga MVP award for August. Lamine Yamal won the U23 award.

Flick was clearly getting things to work, and the momentum was building with every game, so the international break didn't come at the most convenient of times. The idea now is for Barça to carry on exactly how they left off...

Team news

There was good news this week as both Gavi and Ansu Fati returned to training, but neither are ready in time for this game. Barça's strong to the start to the season all the more impressive bearing in mind that only that duo but also Ronald Araujo, Andreas Christensen and Frenkie de Jong have been out injured.

To make matters worse, Marc Bernal's exceptional performances since being added to the side have been cut short by injury, and midfielder Fermin Lopez is also unavailable after he hurt his hamstring while training with the Spain U21 side. Fortunately, he was the only player who reported back from international duty with a fitness issue.

The squad sees a first-ever call-up for 16-year-old Guille Fernández, known as Guillermo, who earlier broke Lamine Yamal's record for becoming the youngest ever player to be picked for Barça Atlétic. And now here he is being named to the senior side...