Sergi Gómez has not played since February 27. It was not just another game at the Estadio de La Cerámica. Espanyol fell 5-1 to Villarreal in the worst game of the season and Espanyol’s defense collapsed on all sidesfissures that were later concentrated in the Arenys de Mar plant. With “inconvenience” but on the bench, Sergi Gómez made way for Fernando Calero against Getafe, and the vallisoletano yielded remarkably. Vicente Moreno’s team won a key game to scare away ghosts and get closer to salvation.
The central will repeat on the bench, Leandro Cabrera and Calero consolidated in the starting team. In the last four games, Espanyol has recovered the pulse of the championship, with good numbers in defense: only two goals conceded in 360 minutes. Goals, in addition, that exempt the defenders. The first, Joan García’s famous miscalculation against Levante. And, the second, the one he achieved after Calero’s controversial penalty against Mikel Merino on Monday at Anoeta. Although he has conceded chances, Espanyol has been solvent.
Gómez will not be able to meet again with Celta, along with Sevilla and Barcelona the other shirts he has worn in the First Division. In the first round he did play in Balaídos, where he had a fateful performance like the rest of his teammates. Two of the three goals received by the parakeet team came through the center of the defense. Already in Vigo the state of grace that Espanyol’s defense had shown in the first third of the championship began to break: the previous week they had already conceded three goals against Levante (4-3) and they also conceded the same in Vigo (3 -one).
The parakeet team has defended the area better in these matches, with a surprising Calero who is offering the best version. It is not the first time that Sergi Gómez experiences moments of rest or substitutions throughout the season. In his first year in Vigo it already happened to him from matchday 27 to 34, in the 2014-15 campaign; as well as the 2016-17 academic year, when he played 25 league games for Celta that played three competitions. Or the last two campaigns in Seville when the arrival of Julen Lopetegui took him out of the team. Precisely, his last campaign in Vigo and the first in Seville represent the two best courses for the now parakeet center-back, he was even summoned with Luis Enrique’s Spanish National Team in 2019.
La Liga Santander
*Data updated as of April 8, 2022
Now at Espanyol he has gone from being indisputable in the first round to seeing how Calero has taken advantage of the opportunity and the team works again, with its virtues and defects. It is the moment for the fallow of Sergi Gómezsomething that he has had to live habitually in his previous stages.