Espanyol is played in Granada to avoid its second worst campaign

Going through the newspaper library can be an annoyance for any Espanyol fan. Negative data abound in this final stretch of the course when in the first round the Blue and Whites flirted with their best numbers, even at times their trajectory was similar to the one they traced Joan Francesc Ferrer, Rubi, and led the blue and white team to the Europa League not so long ago (2018). But the second round has dynamited everything. It has been Goma-2, so much so that it has taken the coach and sports director with it.

For this reason, and although for qualifying purposes the match has no other incentive than knowing the final position and knowing how it affects the money to be received for television rights, this last match against the Granada in Los Cármenes keeps an important value for Espanyol. If they do not score, the team led by Vicente Moreno and now by Luis Blanco (the firefighter from the last two days) will be the second worst Espanyol in terms of points since victories are counted by three points. Or what is the same, since the 1995-96 academic year.

Below is only the worst Espanyol in history, the relegation of 2020, a year of pandemic and desolation in the parakeet club, who reached only 25 points to finish last. Igualado is now with Miguel Ángel Lotina’s team from the 2005-06 season, which won the Cup but, by opposition, was saved in the 93rd minute of the last match thanks to a goal by Ferran Corominas. That Espanyol also added the current 41 points.

And Spanish flirting the whole course with descent, not like the team this year, unofficially saved seven games ago, mathematically two days ago. The Blue and Whites have not suffered, they have let themselves go, as if once the file was signed, nothing made sense. Something similar happened to Javier Aguirre in the 2013-14 campaign, when the team registered 42 points after a final stretch in which he only managed to add two points from the last 24.

The victory would give Espanyol the option of approaching the average points of this section, which is very far away, at 48.6 in Firstshows that, no matter what happens now, the first round of Espanyol was as remarkable as this second section has been insufficient, with the objective in this last meeting that it is not very insufficient.