Tsygankov’s late brace fires Girona past Real Sociedad and out of danger

Girona's Viktor Tsygankov celebrates after scoring

Viktor Tsygankov’s late double secured Girona’s first away win of the LaLiga season, as the strugglers climbed out of the relegation zone with a 2-1 victory at Real Sociedad.

La Real had scored just five league goals before half-time this season, but they almost took the lead inside 90 seconds when Takefusa Kubo fired over the crossbar from Ander Barrenetxea’s cross.

The hosts remained on the front foot, but it was Sociedad goalkeeper Alex Remiro who made the first save of note in the 21st minute, flying to his right to tip Tsygankov’s curling effort around the post.

Sociedad had lacked the quality in the final third to turn intent into goalscoring opportunities, but that changed 10 minutes before half-time. Captain Igor Zubeldia dissected the Girona defence with a through ball from his own half, and Goncalo Guedes latched onto the pass before taking three touches and firing low past Paulo Gazzaniga.

The forward’s past four strikes at club level had each come in games when his team won and scored at least three goals, a trend Sociedad will have been confident of continuing. The hosts saw out the rest of the half comfortably to lead at the interval for only the second time in LaLiga this season.

Girona started the second half brightly as they pushed for an equaliser, with skipper Arnau Martinez and Azzedine Ounahi both sending efforts wide of the post.

The visitors appeared to have lost momentum, but out of nothing, they found an equaliser 15 minutes from time. Ounahi collected a long ball and dinked a perfectly-weighted cross into the path of Tsygankov, who lifted the shot beyond Remiro for his second goal of the season.

Nine minutes later, the turnaround was complete when Alex Moreno broke into the penalty area and crossed low towards Tsygankov, whose clever backheel bamboozled Remiro and found the bottom corner.

Sociedad were stunned and were unable to reply, as their third successive league defeat kept them 14th in the table. Girona, though, rise above0Mallorca into 17th after winning for only the second time in 17 LaLiga away trips.