The Pride of Vallekas

Darren Smith appears on The Week In Football show every 3 weeks reporting on the 2nd division and Girona in particular. Been doing that for 3 seasons and after reporting on 2 play-off failures is hoping for better news this time! You can check it out here . You can also follow him on Twitter here . How long have you been a fan of Girona and what made you support them in the first place? I'm Darren Smith, 49, and a lifelong season ticket holder at Sheffield United, visiting 70+ grounds. 8 years ago I moved to Girona and started watching them as I was missing my fix on a weekend. This coincided with Girona having the best team in their history. Have made the play-offs in 3 of the last 4 seasons despite, until this season, having a bottom 4 budget. New owners came in last season and use Pere Guardiola as a consultant. This has opened up a very useful link with Man City where we loan players from them and used their facilities in the summer. Given the transfer windows and the ...

Euan McTear is a Scottish football journalist who focuses on LaLiga and who writes about Spanish football for MARCA In English and These Football Times. You can follow him on Twitter here  and buy his book on Eibar here . How long have you been a fan of Eibar and what made you support them in the first place? I first started following Eibar as a result of the Scottish links of their fan. I then wrote a book called ‘Eibar The Brave’ about their promotion as LaLiga’s smallest ever team and got to know the club and its supporters better and have followed them closely ever since. Given the transfer windows and the squad that was assembled at the start of the season, is Eibar where you want it to be? Eibar have far exceeded expectations in 2016-17. Although they no longer have the very smallest budget of the division, they are still one of the smallest teams in the transfer market. Yet their sporting director Fran Garagarza has an eye for a bargain and signed some excellent ...