Barcelona's German coach Hans-Dieter Flick is pictured before the Spanish league football match between FC Barcelona and RCD Mallorca at Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona on February 7, 2026. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP via Getty Images) | AFP via Getty ImagesRenato GonçalvesMon, February 16, 2026 at 4:00 AM UTC·4 min readGirona FC (15th, 26pts) vs FC Barcelona (2nd, 58pts)
Competition/Round: 2025-26 La Liga, Matchday 24
Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Gavi, Pedri, Marcus Rashford, Andreas Christensen (out)
Girona Outs & Doubts: Juan Carlos, Donny van de Beek, Portu, Marc-André ter Stegen, Álex Moreno (out), Azzedine Ounahi (doubt)
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBarcelona Form Guide: WWWWL
Girona Form Guide: WWDLD
Date/Time: Monday, February 16, 2026, 9pm CET/WAT (Barcelona & Nigeria), 8pm GMT (UK), 3pm ET, 12pm PT (USA), 1.30am IST (India, Tuesday)
Venue: Estadi Montilivi, Girona, Catalonia, Spain
Referee: César Soto Grado
VAR: David Gálvez Rascón
How to watch on TV: ESPN2 (USA), Premier Sports 1 (UK), SuperSport (Nigeria), others
How to watch online: ESPN+ (USA), Premier Sports Player (UK), FanCode (India), DAZN (Spain), others
Following their worst defeat of the season against Atlético Madrid to leave their Copa del Rey title defense hopes hanging by a thread, Barcelona return to action for a very important La Liga game against Catalan rivals Girona at the Montilivi Stadium on Monday Night Fútbol.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt is very, very rare that Barça play on a Monday, and the weekend brought even more bad news as Real Madrid beat Real Sociedad on Saturday to take temporary possession of first place in the table and put a ton of pressure on a wounded Barça to get the job done and regain top spot in the standings.
The defeat to Atlético was the perfect opportunity for the professional overreactors to come back into the spotlight and offer all of their loud criticisms, and those who only speak about Hansi Flick’s system when it doesn’t work are having a lot of fun right now, even though Flick’s fatally flawed tactics have resulted in four trophies in 18 months and the deepest Champions League run in six years with by far the least amount of money invested among all the elite teams in Europe. But sure, do go off about the high line.
The loss in Madrid still hurts but is in the past, and Barça still have a chance, as remote as it appears now, to overturn that deficit at home in the second leg (and boy would it be hilarious if they did). All they can do now is move on, and in a way the best thing for them is having the chance to play so quickly after that disaster so they can put in a strong performance and restore the good vibes.
Barça will be considered favorites on paper against a Girona team just one point above the relegation zone, but this is not the same team we saw struggle so much in the first half of the season. Míchel continues to prove his value as a coach as he found a way to improve his defense and bring more balance to the side, and Girona have been excellent in 2026 with three wins, two draws and just one defeat in six games, and are looking a lot stronger in the fight against relegation.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementGirona’s best performance before the turn of the year was actually in their first meeting of the season with Barça, as they went into Montjuïc and gave the Blaugrana all they could handle before Hansi Flick brought Ronald Araujo off the bench as a striker and the Uruguayan scored a memorable 93rd minute winner. That was the first sign that Girona were actually better than their terrible position in the table suggested, and we are finally seeing that improvement turn into positive results.
Girona will provide a really tough test for a Barça team that need to prove their mental toughness to bounce back from their worst performance of the season, and the Blaugrana must be prepared for a real battle on the road against a team that won’t be afraid to go toe-to-toe with them and will likely try to replicate Atlético’s aggressive gameplan to see if Barça have learned their lessons.
The professional overreactors will be salivating and ready to explode if Barça don’t beat a relegation candidate that they easily defeated 7-0 (on Amateur difficulty) in their video games, but this really is a must-win game for Flick and his troops. They need to prove that what happened in Madrid was a blip, not a trend, and a big victory in a tough environment would be a nice first step.
Let’s dance.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementPOSSIBLE LINEUPS
Barcelona (4-2-3-1): Joan; Kounde, Cubarsí, Eric, Balde; De Jong, Bernal; Yamal, Fermín, Ferran; Lewandowski
Girona (4-2-3-1): Gazzaniga; Rincón, Reis, Blind, Arnau; Beltrán, Martín; Tsygankov, Lemar, Gil; Vanat
PREDICTION
This is a much better Girona side compared to the one that already caused so many problems for Barça earlier this season, so I expect a really tough away game that will really test this team’s mental state. But I’m choosing to believe the Atleti defeat was a positive wake-up call, and the Blaugrana will play well and leave Montilivi with a strong result in their favor: 3-1 to the good guys.
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