Someone closed the door

It is a well-known fact that the house is built on the foundation, and nobody starts with the roof…or they shouldn’t. Transferred to the world of football, it can be said that a team is built on a good defense, which generates the appropriate conditions for attacking play to take place in the most appropriate and safe framework. Well, it is a declaration of principles on which the Royal Society of Imanol has not wavered over the past year. And that’s it! That team has the best record of the last decade, with fourth place in the League and the ticket for the Champions League with it. And all this is built on the premise of jealously guarding your door, while unleashing all your creative talents a few meters ahead. Real managed to keep a clean sheet up to fifteen occasions, in the League alone, and made this behavior a habit, to the point where they decided that the competition was the third best team in this section. From there, the conclusions are obvious: everything he can do in attack will reach a greater value if possible.

Well, at the beginning of this campaign, Imanol’s team seems to have lost the keys to correctly interpret the defensive score, and has already scored up to ten goals in six games, keeping the door closed only once, in Las Palmas , perhaps the worst. game for txuri urdin for a long time. And in the last two appearances against his home parish, against Granada and Getafe, Remiro had to find the ball in his own nets up to six times. It is clear that in this dynamic, it is materially impossible to imagine a normal development. Either they manage to close the door soon, or the problems will multiply. No one doubts this team’s ability to create football and chances, but it will have a greater impact if someone manages to press the right button to close the door.

QUESTION OF HIERARCHY

We are on the brink of another derby. That is, a new opportunity to measure the two most representative teams of Basque football through direct confrontation. And we all know, although some still refuse to admit it, that in this type of clash there is more than three points at stake. Even something more than an ancestral itch to defeat the eternal rival, your neighbor, and live a few days off the emotional rewards it brings. When Real and Athletic face each other, we all know that, in some way, primacy within the football of our community is at stake. Clearly, according to the record, the Bilbao club has traditionally enjoyed a status as a benchmark in Basque football, but times have changed events in a different direction, and that once almost indisputable dominance has become balanced , and even in recent years in the imbalance in favor of the San Sebastian club. Without going any further, in the last eight seasons, in six of them the people from San Sebastian have shown their backs to their rival in the final classification, and that is something that, obviously, is not good for other side of the A8, and they are trying to reverse it as soon as possible. I insist, it is a question of hierarchy.

TURRI, ONE STEP MORE

This is undoubtedly one of the great news of the weekend: Turrientes He is moving a little towards his consolidation as the only football player that some of us, even thought, long ago and for whom we dream for the future. Against Getafe, a tough nut to crack that increased the value of the test, he stood his ground and left the details of a great footballer.

METAL, SMILE AND TEARS

Since June 2007, every Real visit to the Mestalla has had a special meaning. That year, there, ended Real’s final relegation to the Second. Some of the saddest images of the team’s recent history are still fresh in my mind. Now, luckily, the visit has more smiles than tears, and that’s great news.

DID YOU KNOW…?

-Since Real Sociedad’s last promotion, the San Sebastian team has visited the Mestalla on 13 occasions, with a balance of five wins, four draws and four losses.

-In the last five campaigns, Real faced 6 different coaches on Che bench: Baraja, Gattuso, Bordalás, Gracia, Celades and Marcelino.

-In the last 15 confrontations between Valencians and Donostiarras, 14 of them have been resolved by a draw or a narrow victory for one of the two.