After 10 years away, a cameo in a goalless draw with Real Madrid saw one of Spain’s greats return in a Real Sociedad shirt Dry your eyes, mate. “We cried over his departure,” Miguel-Ángel Moyá said, but the tears didn’t last long. On the final day of last season, Martin Odegaard told his Real Sociedad teammates he was staying for another season, only for Real Madrid to decide differently, changing everything. Twenty days later, recently knocked out of the Champions League, the La Liga winners announced they were bringing him home, four and a half years after he had joined, three since he had set off on loan at Heerenveen, Vitesse and Real Sociedad, and one ahead of schedule.In San...
A December Copa del Rey thrashing for Club Deportivo Becerril ended with an open invite for their fans to visit the Reale Arena. At the weekend, two-thirds of a small town took them up on it At the end of training on Friday night, the players from Club Deportivo Becerril packed everything away and headed straight home. It was quarter past 10 and they had to be up early the next morning. Not long after 7.30am they were back, boarding the bus heading north, a four-hour journey ahead. One of the buses, that is. They had a game, but this time it wasn’t theirs. Instead, they were going to San Sebastián, singing songs all the way there, and the whole...
Imanol Alguacil’s team are rocketing this season with a style of football that is delighting their fans and playersThere was one loud explosion and then six more followed. Across the city they knew that could mean only one thing: Real Sociedad had won again. A tradition from la Real’s old Atoxa ground, momentarily lost after they left in 1993 but recovered at Anoeta in 2009, a single firework is set off every time the visitors score and two are lit when la Real do. That way, the theory goes, in the boats on the Bay of Biscay they always knew how their team were getting on. And although moving to a ground on the other end of town means news...
Two historic, special clubs battled Madrid and Barça at grounds that embrace traditions rather than turn their backs on itIt’s exactly 100km from Anoeta to San Mamés as the car drives, passing Ipurúa halfway, sitting pretty in the Ego valley. Visible from the road, there was no one at the stadium this time – Eibar were down to Madrid to play Atlético – but there were thousands at each end of the AP8, striped shirts everywhere, flags hanging from bars where old photos hang from walls and they were making a lot of noise, packing Pozas Street in Bilbao, and spilling into the sunshine on Zorroaga Way, San Sebastián. Maybe even more noise than ever before. There’s something special about...
Zinedine Zidane’s side have dropped more points than in the whole of last season and are 19 points behind Barcelona after Villarreal won at the Bernabéu – at their 19th attemptSergio Busquets probably felt like hiding behind his hands. “The ghosts appeared,” he said. It was a cold, dark night and everywhere he looked they were there. If he looked left, especially. Blue and white figures flew past. Over the other side, on the touchline, Ernesto Valverde pulled his jacket up tight and peered through the pouring rain. “You must have thought: ‘again’,” he was asked afterwards, when it was finally over – the match, the curse, probably the title, too. “Exactly,” he said. Everyone did. The day before, Barcelona’s...