With the objective of permanence already achieved, Pellicer’s men stepped on to the pitch with the intention of celebrating a home win, and went all out for victory from the outset.
The Blue and Whites controlled the pace of play and maintained possession effectively in the opening stages. After the first quarter of an hour of the game, Stefan came close to a 1-0 lead when he powerfully finished a clearance from a previous Yanis opportunity. However, the opposing goalkeeper deflected the ball with a superb reaction. In the next play, the referee sent off local defender Josua with a direct red card, leaving the Blue and Whites down to 10 men.
As a result, the visitors began to dominate possession, but the numerical inferiority was not palpable on the field of play at any time. So much so that Málaga CF tried to scare the rival with vertical counter-attacks on several occasions, yet to no avail. The scoreboard remained at 0-0 at half-time.
The second half kicked off in a similar tone to the first. The visitors tried to make the most of their superiority and, although the Blue and White defence remained solid in defending their goal, they finally took the lead on the scoreboard in 62'. Santi Bueno took advantage of an action inside the area to put the rival in front (0-1).
The goal didn’t deter the Malaguistas, who set out to find the equaliser. Barely a minute after the goal, a shot from Cristian crashed into the far post with great low definition. The near miss led the few people present to bring their hands to their heads in disbelief.
The duel began to heat up and both teams exchanged opportunities. The ball reached both areas with high intensity, but the scoreboard didn’t move. Rival forward, Sylla had a chance to increase Girona’s lead, but goalkeeper Juan Soriano intelligently resolved the one-on-one, clearing the ball to a corner.
Finally, after a controversial action in which the locals claimed a handball within the rival area that the referee declined to acknowledge, the match came to an end and the visitors claimed all three points.
