There has been criticism, but don’t expect fans to mobilise in huge numbers against their own clubs, not like in EnglandPoor Roberto Carlos. It was his first and hopefully his last day in the job, and he had to deal with that. At the end of every game, former Real Madrid striker Emilio Butragueño faces the cameras. Impeccably polite, instantly likeable, part of Butragueño’s role as director of institutional affairs is to gently, expertly navigate match-day interviews; essentially to say not very much but do it nicely. Although there is the occasional leading question and sometimes a message to deliver, an idea to implant, it’s rarely a big deal.This time though it was the biggest deal of all, maybe ever...
Having been well off the pace in January, Real beat Barcelona to briefly return to the top of La Liga on Saturday“I’ve been locked up for two weeks, as if I was in a cage, and I feel like a fight,” Zinedine Zidane said, so he went out and found one. Having tested positive for the coronavirus and isolated at home, he had heard the whispers, read the press, taken the hits and knew what lay beneath. Worse, he had watched his team. He had seen his assistant David Bettoni insist that Real Madrid’s fans “still believe because our DNA is to fight to the end” but even in empty grounds – where there are no whistles and no white...
The La Liga side rightly left the pitch against Cádiz over alleged racial abuse, so why did they end up coming back on?Every time the camera focused on Mouctar Diakhaby sitting in the stands, and Juan Cala still on the pitch, it felt worse. An opportunity lost, everything the wrong way round. On Sunday afternoon Valencia became the first top-level team in Spain to walk off the pitch in protest at alleged racist abuse suffered by their player, only to turn and come back on again.Now the game, which no longer felt like a game, had started again – without the abused and with the alleged abuser. Diakhaby sat in silence, arms crossed, the mask over his face not really...
Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao’s delayed Copa del Rey final will be an historic occasion – even without any fans to witness itThey have waited a long time for this, just not for it to be like this. Saturday night’s Copa del Rey final between Real Sociedad and Athletic Club, the Basque derby staged almost 1,000km south in Seville, should have been played 12 months ago. Instead, it was postponed by the pandemic and a decision that defines these two historic representatives of a unique place, a country: together, they refused to play without their people. But it’s not that, or not only that.It’s not just that this match, the match, will take place a season late and, with supporters...
In their short spells with Real Sociedad three players left an indelible mark, as former teammates recallThe day John Aldridge turned up at Real Sociedad’s Zubieta training ground in September 1989, he was confronted by graffiti saying foreigners weren’t welcome. A year on, he had been so good that they welcomed two more of them, this time with open arms. For almost 30 years, la Real didn’t have a player from outside the Basque Country; now they had three, and all from Britain and Ireland.They were in San Sebastián together for only a season and not even a particularly good one, la Real finishing 1990-91 in their lowest position since returning to the first division 22 years earlier, but Aldridge,...