Girona FC are one of the most thrilling teams to watch in LaLiga Santander in the 2022/23 season, with the newly promoted side's matches producing more than three goals on average per 90 minutes. The Catalan club are comfortably outside the relegation zone and one of the key players behind this success is local midfielder Oriol Romeu.
The 31-year-old is back in LaLiga Santander after spending the previous seven years with Southampton in England and Romeu is the anchor at the heart of Girona FC's midfield, the key cog that makes coach Míchel's scheme work.
As Romeu and his Girona FC teammates set about the second-half of the season, here comes a look at five facts you might not know about him.
Romeu and teammate Aleix García hail from the same town of 6,000 people
By joining Girona FC in the summer of 2022, Romeu made a return to his home region of Catalonia. He was born and grew up in a small town named Ulldecona, which has a population of just 6,000 people. Incredibly, despite the town's tiny population, they boast two Girona FC players; fellow midfielder Aleix García also hails from Ulldecona.
His previous experience in LaLiga Santander
Romeu has spent much of his career abroad, representing Chelsea and Southampton in England, as well as Stuttgart in Germany. But it was in his native Spain that Romeu took his first steps in senior football. After coming through the RCD Espanyol academy and then FC Barcelona's La Masia, he played for Luis Enrique's impressive Barcelona B side, before making two appearances with Pep Guardiola's senior Barça team, including his LaLiga Santander debut, vs Deportivo de la Coruña in 2011. He'd later spend the 2013/14 season on loan with Valencia CF, making another 13 appearances in Spain's top division with Los Che.
He is an Olympian
Even if he has never featured for the Spanish national team at senior level, Romeu was such a hot prospect as a teenager that he played for all the various Spanish youth categories. The midfielder was then part of the Spain squad that competed at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, featuring in the matches against Japan and Morocco.
Juan Mata and a love of literature
In his free time, Romeu reads a lot, but this wasn't always the case. It was when he coincided with fellow Spanish midfielder Juan Mata at Chelsea that Romeu really started to take an interest in literature, with the World Cup winner advising Romeu to pick up as many books as possible. He took that to heart and the Girona FC man now shares his favourite book recommendations via his website, while he has written a book of his own titled 'The season of my life', in which he chronicles his 2020/21 campaign with Southampton.
His appearance in Girona for Catalonia
Even before joining Girona FC in the summer of 2022, Romeu had actually already played a home game at the Estadi Montilivi. That was in March of 2019, when the midfielder turned out for the Catalonia team in a friendly match against Venezuela, which the Catalans won 2-1 in front of 14,000 fans. Now, Romeu has become one of those fans' favourite players in this season's fun Girona FC side.
