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Real Sociedad doesn't have the resources or appeal to star players from around the world. They have all the talent they need in Basque Country.
It's raining in San Sebastian. It's almost always raining here, or has stopped raining, or is about to rain. The city of elegant promenades is located on Spain's northern coast and is one of Europe's loveliest settings. Nobody goes there for the weather.
San Sebastian gets around 150 days of sunshine a year, less than the national average. The sky in Lasarte is a color of chimney smoke when I arrive at Real Sociedad's training grounds. The region has had 18 straight days of precipitation.
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The 19th will be when Real Sociedad will host PSV Eindhoven in a game that will eliminate one of them from the European competition. The changing room is filled with nobody's thoughts. Mikel Oyarzabal, who was born in Eibar, says that it's an advantage for them. The other teams aren't used to it.
Oyarzabal has spent his entire career at Real Sociedad. He shrugs when asked how he and his teammates deal with the gloomy skies. He says he likes it when the weather is bad. I don't know why. It makes me feel comfortable.
The rain is getting harder as the players walk up the hillside path in twos and threes, heading for a field of green so iridescent that it looks real. The clouds are dark. The training session could be moved indoors. Nobody looks up. "It's normal for us," says Ander Barrenetxea, a promising young winger who was born and raised in San Sebastian.
The small hillside villages and stately cities of the Basque Country are where most of the team is from. Zaldua and Zubimendi are the most well-known of their families, with a proliferation of Z's and X's. I can hear them talking in the Basque language as they kick the ball around.
Euskera is not related to Spanish or the French spoken across the border. It has no relation to any language in the world. If you don't start speaking Euskera in your childhood, you will never learn.
Alexander Isak and Alex Sorloth have both relocated to the region in the last few years, and David Silva has also done so. Their teammates understand. Mat Ryan says that they read the room. "If a bunch of guys are sitting around, they're talking in Euskera." If one of us walks in, they'll switch to Spanish.
Real Sociedad's players can openly discuss their strategy against any opponent, except one of the other Basque clubs. Ryan says nobody has any idea what's going on in the game.
The first team tends to get most of its talent at the training grounds. The local kids play for the club from an early age and when they're ready, they move up until they reach LaLiga.
The Basques cultivated their crops, tended to their flocks and kept to themselves for centuries. In a 17th century play, they are described as " short on words, but long on deeds". Athletic Bilbao, Osasuna, Eibar and Real Sociedad are football teams.
Guipuzcoa is the most compact province in Spain. Donostia has 185,000 residents. Forty Spanish cities are larger. Real Sociedad is near the top of the LaLiga table. It won the Copa del Rey. The game will be played this Wednesday in the round of 16 of the competition. Real Sociedad advanced to the competition six times. It played in the European league in 2003 and 2004.
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Ryan, who joined the club in the summer, is an outsider. John Toshack was the first to manage it three times, followed by John Aldridge, who came from the Reds four years later. It is a way to make sure the Basque culture remains intact. Real Sociedad wants to compete with the top clubs in Spain and occasionally all of Europe.
Sometimes it succeeds. The club was at the top of La Liga at the end of October. Manager Imanol Alguacil warned that the chances of finishing ahead of Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Atltico Madrid were small. Even though they are in fifth place, outside the top four, players are uneasy about returning to the European competition. "We want to be there, but we can't say we will be there," says Mikel Merino, a Basque player who grew up in Pamplona.
The Basque way is to direct attention to the task at hand, whether that means patiently driving a herd of sheep into a pen or preparing for the next match. The next training session is what Merino says. We don't pay attention to the future.
The fans of Sociedad are very close to the Basque Country. The buses were mobbed by fans before the final of the Copa del Rey. The trophy was brought home by Sociedad.
The Basques are the oldest surviving ethnic group in Europe, having remained in the same area since the Paleolithic era. The Basque Country was the last area of Western Europe to convert to Christianity. It was the last place where families from the countryside came together to form towns. The Basques have a capital A that looks like a card table, and a capital L that is adapted from the writing on their tombstones.
Real Sociedad is helped by this insularity. The neighborhood extends across three Spanish provinces. "It feels like a family," says Merino. "We protect each other." Real Sociedad brought Merino home after he had spent time in the other teams. He says he's fortunate. This is a very special place to live.
In 1985 Toshack arrived in San Sebastian. He was impressed by the city when he played there a decade ago. He was hired to manage Real Sociedad after finishing second in the Portuguese league. He earned promotion to the first division of England's fourth division three times in a row. He was a hot commodity.
His appointment was met with anger and disbelief from a significant portion of Real Sociedad supporters. Each of the club's managers had been Basque. "Hiring me was a big step," Toshack says now. One of the major newspapers in town supported the idea. If you weren't Basque, they were against you. That was how the supporters were divided. Many people in the city were against foreign coaches. I had some difficult moments early on.
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The challenge for Toshack was that his players were also Basque. All of them. For decades, only those who came from the Basque Country were allowed to play for the team. The quality of Spanish football began to rise in the 1980s. Real Sociedad was limited to a small group of elite players in a region with a population of less than 2 million. It had to compete with other clubs for those players.
The largest and most important city is where Athletic played. It had a roster that was made up of all Basques. Real Sociedad's youth system nurtured nearly its entire squad. The players who emerged as world-class were Txiki Begiristain and Jose Maria Bakero. Many of them fell below the expected standard.
Toshack says that you had to pick players who wouldn't have been good enough at other clubs. It seemed ridiculous that this club could keep playing in the first division.
Real Sociedad were top of LaLiga earlier this season, no small feat considering the largesse they're competing with. The club is a 'brotherhood' and a'special place to play' according to Mikel Merino.
In his second season at Real Sociedad, Toshack guided it to the trophy, which hadn't been won in a century. That was a turning point for the club. He wanted to add a few players from outside and the trophy gave him the strength to do so.
Toshack had a player in his image. He scored 40 goals for Real Sociedad over two seasons, and his signing was a success. It was a failure. The club's loyalists never accepted Aldridge. Even Begiristain, who had grown up in the Basque mountain town of Olaberria, described the arrival of Aldridge as sad. Toshack went to Real Madrid and returned to Real Sociedad. He would manage the club for eight seasons, spread over 17 years.
He says that you don't have to be smart to understand that he liked it there. It is one of my favorite places. Perhaps my favorite place.
Real Sociedad had seasons when it did well and seasons when it didn't. It played in the second division during the worst of times. David Moyes was the only manager since then who was not from Basque.
After a long time atEverton, David Moyes arrived at West Ham in 2014; he was frustrated at trying to follow Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. He finished in 12th place at Real Sociedad, but was replaced after the first season. He didn't seem to understand the people of the city. His tenure in San Sebastian is not remembered fondly.
The current manager is more popular than the previous one. He started in Real Sociedad's youth system in 1988. He played for the senior team and was the manager of the youth team. He was promoted in December. He had never worked outside of the Basque Country.
Real Sociedad relies on its youth system for two-thirds of its first-team players. Basques who started with other clubs are the others. Around the region, the country and the world are where the rest are from.
Alexander Isak is one of the players who came to the Basque Country. He's a careful acquisition in a plan built around sustainable practices.
Isak was acquired after a disappointing tenure. Sorloth was on a loan from RB Leipzig. The most striking addition to the team has been Silva, who was rumored to be on a plane to sign a three-year deal at Lazio in August 2020.
The first team at the Zubieta Training Ground are well equipped and mostly found on the seven fields. "This is something the club has always done well, and we are known for it," says Barrenetxea. A player who is promoted to the top team from the B team is ready to compete at this level. That gives us an advantage.
Real Sociedad B is the only team playing in Spain's second tier that is currently below level. Xabi Alonso started at Real Sociedad and went on to play for many different teams.
The B team's games used to be held at Zubieta. There was a large crowd along one touchline. Anoeta is the same stadium used by the first team, so Real Sociedad B is playing there. Anoeta is now Reale Arena because of a sponsorship deal, but nobody calls it that who doesn't get paid for doing so.
The blanquinegros of the CF Burgos were in town recently. The crowd was scattered around the stadium other than the corner of visiting supporters who had made the trip from Burgos. The game had a small-town feel. The teenage girls were in the front of the stands at halftime. The girls called to the players when they emerged from the tunnel. The players answered.
Real Sociedad B has lost three in a row. The fans didn't care. The team came off the field. Then head out in the rain with coats and hats.
The best part of the evening was still to come for many of them.
San Sebastian is world-famous for its cuisine. The club's players dine in peace while the club's agents close transfer deals at fine restaurants.
The hills surrounding San Sebastian have restaurants that have been awarded the prestigious title of "Michelin stars". More than any other restaurant with a similar population have been recognized. If locals aren't dining at one of them on a given night, they might be at one of the city's 120 "social clubs" at which men cook elaborate meals for each other, then critique them late. Small plates that can accumulate to make an extraordinary meal can be found at a high-top table beside a bar.
"We are proud to have great gastronomy here," he says. We take advantage of it. Our nutritionist isn't as happy as we are, but it's not like we're eating fast food. This is not ordinary food. People here care about it. It's an important part of our culture.
Americans spend less on restaurant meals than the residents of the Basque Country. The percentage in San Sebastian is said to be the highest in the world. Hilario Arbelaitz is the chef and restaurant owner. Going out to eat is a big part of who we are.
A 500-year-old stone farmhouse is where Arbelaitz was born in Oiartzun, a town of 10,000 southeast of San Sebastian. He converted the farmhouse into a restaurant when he was 30. It is one of the best in Spain.
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