Girona FC will face CD Castellón on Wednesday at 18:30 in a pre-season friendly at the Girona Football Academy by Puma, a summer test that arrives with both clubs being framed as promotion contenders in LaLiga Hypermotion 26-27. The match will be shown on Esport3 in Catalonia, giving local fans a first live look at Girona’s third outing of the summer.
Quique Álvarez goes into the game still managing a stretched squad. Paulo Gazzaniga was out with shoulder discomfort, Izan González missed the last match because of adductor discomfort, Dawda sat out the third pre-season commitment because of a viral process, Portu is still working back from a long-term injury, and Yáser Asprilla returned from vacation with physical problems and had not yet joined the team normally. That leaves Girona short of rhythm at a point when every minute matters, especially after a 1-3 win over Olot and then a 0-1 loss to Deportivo Alavés.
That loss was particularly frustrating because Girona controlled much of the match but still fell to Álvaro García’s goal in the 90th minute. It was the kind of result that shows how little pre-season scorelines can hide: possession and pressure do not mean much if the final touch is missing. For Girona, the meeting with Castellón is more than a friendly because it is another chance to measure where the group stands before LaLiga Hypermotion begins.
Castellón, for its part, comes in after beating Valencia 1-2 in pre-season and after finishing last season in the LaLiga Hypermotion playoff. That is why this fixture has been cast as a meeting between two clear promotion candidates rather than just another summer workout. Girona’s next named home landmark is Arsenal on 1 August at Montilivi in the 49th Trofeo Costa Brava, but before that the immediate question is whether Asprilla can move from limited work into normal training in time to be useful.
For now, the answer is simpler than the buildup around it: Girona has a third friendly, a live broadcast, and a squad still being patched together while the season edges closer.
