Nine wins in a row: Real Sociedad lighting up LaLiga ahead of Barça & Real Madrid meetings
The Basque club are third in the table and aiming for a place in the Champions League. Here's what makes them so special...
Imanol Alguacil had an announcement to make. Real Sociedad had just beaten Basque rivals Athletic Club to win the Copa del Rey, a first trophy in 34 years, and their coach was speaking to the media. “If you’ll let me,” he said, “I’m going to pass from manager mode to fan mode for a moment.” With that, he took off his jacket, put on one of the team’s blue-and-white striped shirts, held aloft a club scarf and shouted aloud: “This is for all of you, Gipuzkoa. For all those who feel La Real.” Then he chanted passionately in Basque. “Come on Real! Real! Come on, Goazen!”
It is hard to think of a coach more connected to his club than Imanol to La Real. The 51-year-old was born just along the coast from San Sebastián in the fishing town of Orio, he came through the youth system at Real Sociedad, played for their youth team and then the first team in over 100 appearances as a right-back. Later, he returned as coach: first with the academy, then the B team, later as interim manager and since 2018, in charge of their first team.
The 2020 Copa win (the final was actually played in April 2021 due to Covid-19 as Spain’s Football Federation had hoped, in vain, that fans could ultimately attend) was a high for Real Sociedad under Imanol but the best may be yet to come. This season, La Real lie third in LaLiga after 18 rounds of matches – three points adrift of Real Madrid and six behind Barcelona.
Spain’s big two each have a game in hand, but it is impressive nonetheless: in the wage budgets announced by LaLiga at the beginning of the season, Madrid and Barça’s salary spending for the year was over six times that of La Real. And yet, there they are, keeping pace with perhaps the world’s two biggest clubs, still competing in the Copa del Rey and having topped their group in the Europa League, too.
Real Sociedad have won their last nine games in all competitions and amid an injury crisis which has laid low many of their best players, the club has had to rely on young, homegrown footballers to see them through.
That is also a key part of their identity. Unlike Basque rivals Athletic Club, Real Sociedad field players from outside the region and also from overseas, but they still source most of their talent from the tiny Gipuzkoa province (of which San Sebastián is the capital).
In Saturday’s 2-0 win away to Rayo Vallecano, La Real finished the game with six players from Gipuzkoa (or Guipúzcoa in Spanish) on the field. Of the remaining five, there was one from nearby Navarra, one born in Barcelona who had grown up in Pamplona, another from a couple of hours down the road in Burgos, one from Seville in the south and a Frenchman who had arrived at La Real as a 19-year-old. Gipuzkoa, incidentally, is Spain’s smallest mainland province.
Midfielder Martín Zubimendi, born in San Sebastián (Donostia in Basque), reportedly turned down a move to Arsenal this month and has been touted as a possible replacement for Sergio Busquets at Barcelona. Mikel Oyarzabal, from Eibar, is one of Spain’s best attackers and only missed the World Cup after suffering serious injury earlier in 2022. Defensive midfielder Asier Illarramendi, who hails from the tiny town of Mutriku, is back for a second spell after struggling to adapt at Real Madrid. And former Borussia Dortmund midfielder Mikel Merino grew up just 50 miles away in Pamplona.
There are key players from elsewhere, of course: Takefusa Kubo is Japanese, David Silva comes from the Canary Islands, Umar Sadiq is Nigerian and Momo Cho is a Frenchman who featured in the youth teams at Paris Saint-Germain and Everton. But the base is local and with a team characterised by its intensity and playing perhaps the most exciting football in Spain right now, there is a lot to like.
Last weekend, while Barcelona and Real Madrid were away in Saudi Arabia for the Supercopa, Real Sociedad defeated Athletic Club in an electric Basque derby in front of a packed Reale Arena.
Now, following a ninth straight win in all competitions, La Real travel to Barça in the Copa del Rey quarter-finals on Wednesday night and then to Madrid in LaLiga on Sunday. Plagued by injuries – with Silva the latest casualty and seven others already ruled out – ahead of the visits to Camp Nou (where they have not won since 1991, when John Aldridge scored twice and Dalian Atkinson got the other in a 3-1 victory) and the Santiago Bernabéu, expectations are a little lower among fans. But confidence in the camp remains high.
“Winning runs have to be extended for as long as possible,” Imanol said on Tuesday. “We have nine, but we want 10.” Whatever happens, it is already a special story.