Five minutes in and Barca had the first real chance of note, but Lamine Yamal couldn’t get enough bend on his shot and it sailed harmlessly wide. Aside from Fermin Lopez, the visitors were a little lax in their play during the early stages, allowing Girona’s Vladyslav Vanat and Bryan Gil to become particularly involved.
Fermin soon set up Raphinha, and Lamine had acres of space just after to score, but in both instances the chances were squandered.
Ferran was next to go close for the Blaugranes in what was becoming an entertaining end-to-end encounter. In fact, Vanat missed a sitter from Gil’s pinpoint cross in one area, before Barça began firing off shots left, right and centre at the other, but were unable to find the target in all but one of eight first-half instances, including off the base of the post from Raphinha.
On the stroke of half-time, Dani Olmo was felled by Daley Blind in the box, and with the final kick of the half, Lamine hit the same post with a lax penalty kick. Olmo’s long-range effort spun away from the goal as Barça began the second-half on the front foot, though Girona remained dangerous on the break.
As the hour mark approached, the game was being played at walking pace until Thomas Lemar took matters into his own hands, and had the visitors on the back foot.
Just two minutes later, however, Pau Cubarsi scored his first-ever league goal for Barcelona with a towering header from a Jules Kounde cross that Girona goalkeeper, Paulo Gazzaniga, could get nowhere near.
Within a couple of minutes Lemar had a tap-in to draw the sides level, as Barca’s defence went to sleep.
Two stunning one-handed saves in succession from Joan Garcia stopped the visitors going further behind, as the pendulum swung in favour of the hosts with the clock counting down.
Fran Beltran then stunned the visitors with four minutes remaining, as his low drive sent the hosts ahead.
A late red card for Joel Roca reduced the hosts to 10 men, but with seconds left, it made no difference to the result.
Barca had won four of their five away league games against this Girona (L1), scoring 12 goals in those five matches, so this result was a real opportunity missed for Hansi Flick’s side who now sit two points behind Real Madrid in a gripping LaLiga title race.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Joan Garcia (Barcelona)