“It sounds like a cliche, but it’s a family here,” Real Sociedad midfielder Brais Mendez tells The Athletic. “A big family where they go out of their way for each other, caring and respecting each other in everything, from the smallest detail.”
Mendez is talking as La Real prepare for one of the biggest games in their 115-year history — tomorrow’s Champions League last-16 first leg against Paris Saint-Germain.
The tie pits the ‘family’ side from the Basque city of San Sebastian built around a core of homegrown youngsters against PSG’s expensively assembled team of global superstars, including Kylian Mbappe, Marquinhos, Achraf Hakimi and Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Everyone at La Real is excited about what they see as an opportunity to demonstrate the progress they have made on and off the pitch in recent years.
“Paris Saint-Germain is the elite,” says ‘txuri-urdin’ (blue and white in Basque) sporting director Roberto Olabe.
“It is normal that the fans are excited. We all are, we feel excited at this opportunity to project our identity, to show who we are, what we feel.
“But we deserve to be here. And we are looking forward to showing what we are capable of.”
Wednesday’s game at the Parc des Princes can be seen as the result of stability and long-term planning (not always commonplace in Spanish football) at La Real’s Estadio de Anoeta and its Zubieta training facility.
Local businessman Jokin Aperribay has been club president since December 2008. Academy director Luki Iriarte has worked there since 1999. Olabe played as a goalkeeper for the first team in the 1990s and was sporting director from 2002 to 2005 before returning to the role in 2016. Manager Imanol Alguacil was a first-team player in the 1990s, too.
Eleven of the 21 players used as La Real topped their Champions League group (ahead of Inter Milan on goal difference) in the autumn were homegrown, including captain Mikel Oyarzabal and fellow Spain internationals Robin Le Normand and Martin Zubimendi.
The Real Sociedad job was Alguacil’s first in the senior game (Cristian Trujillo/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)
This focus on the youth system is part of the club’s identity, but it also has a practical origin in the financial issues the club endured, especially during three seasons in the Segunda Division from 2007 to 2010.
“Historically, La Real have always worked well with their youth systems, developing players,” says former club midfielder Andoni Imaz. “After getting relegated to Segunda, they focused on their homegrown players — they had no alternative, for financial reasons.
“We remember when we were La Liga champions, with our homegrown team (in 1981 and 1982) and that spirit is back again, with a local backbone of local players, which makes us very happy.”
The development of coaches, at all levels, is also vitally important. All down the ladder are coaches who have spent their entire professional lives at the club. Alguacil spent seven years in charge of several of La Real’s youth sides before becoming first team coach in 2018.
Other former players back at Zubieta include Mikel Llorente, who coached the under-18s in this season’s UEFA Youth League, and Sergio Francisco, who oversees the reserve team that plays in Spain’s third tier. Bayer Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso spent three years at Zubieta learning what he needed to become a top coach, as he told The Athletic in 2021.
Another key part of the project has been the connection with fans in the region. Real Sociedad have just over 38,000 season ticket holders for the 2023-24 season, and a waiting list of more than 3,000.
A view of Real Sociedad’s Anoeta stadium in November 2023 (Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)
The 40,000-seater Anoeta recently underwent an €80million (£68m; $85m) redevelopment, including €14m in funding from the local authorities. A disliked running track was removed and a new wraparound exterior was added. To build a connection with younger fans, season tickets start at €280, the cheapest in La Liga.
“A very important factor was taking away the running track at Anoeta,” says Imaz. “Our old ground Atotxa was a typical English ground but at Anoeta, there was more distance, less heat from the fans. In the last few years, the fans are much closer to the team, with more young fans too. So it’s all going together hand in hand, on and off the pitch.”
Olabe says Real Sociedad’s entire “project” cannot be understood without the connection to the local Gipuzkoa province, the smallest in Spain with a population of 700,000.
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“The whole of our society is participating,” he says. “Our model is super-horizontal, super-participative. The ‘diputacion foral’ (regional council) ensures sport is organised in a very determined way. The Guipuzcoan football federation helps our kids play in different competitions. We have official links with local clubs who help us select players at 12 years old. Our people are proud of what the club is doing.”
That local focus does not mean that La Real do not actively look to bring in ideas, technologies, and players from outside. In 1989, Republic of Ireland international John Aldridge became the club’s first non-Basque player of the modern era. Le Normand and Antoine Griezmann, now at Atletico Madrid, came from France in their early teens, too.
“We are developers of talent, and Zubieta remains the genesis of everything we are doing,” Olabe says. “Eighty per cent of the kids in our academy come from Guipuzcoa and we believe this is one of our biggest strengths. But we are not exclusive, just the opposite. Our solid base allows us to welcome kids from anywhere in the world, who see Real Sociedad as an opportunity to reach an elite level.”
The current first-team squad includes players from Japan, Russia, Nigeria, Suriname and Scotland, as well as players developed at other Spanish clubs, including midfielders Mendez and Mikel Merino, and goalkeeper Alex Remiro, signed from local Basque rivals Athletic Bilbao.
Sweden international Alexander Isak joined for €15million from Borussia Dortmund in July 2019, developed as a player with La Real and won a Copa del Rey in 2021, before being sold to Newcastle for €70m in August 2022. Recent years have also seen former Premier League veterans David Silva and Nacho Monreal signed on shorter-term deals to help guide younger players coming through.
Academy graduate Martin Zubimendi is one of Real Sociedad’s most highly rated players (Ion Alcoba Beitia/Getty Images)
“When a player comes here, we are not thinking about when we might sell him, or for how much,” Olabe says. “We are thinking of their qualities, how they can adapt to our model of play, and how their profile fits what our team needs. We want to create value, but to be competitive, we do not buy to sell. We believe you build a team with patience, constancy, stability, with opportunities.”
Newcomers are joining a squad based around a generation who have grown up together. Oyarzabal, Zubimendi, Le Normand, Alvaro Odriozola, Igor Zubeldia, Aihen Munoz and Aritz Elustondo played together for the reserve team, with Alguacil as their coach.
This core of Basque players actively welcome those who come to the team from outside, says Mendez, who joined La Real from Celta Vigo for €14million in the summer of 2022.
“The mentality and the culture are very different from other teams,” he says. “The first day I arrived, (goalkeeper) Alex Remiro sent me a list with, I’m not exaggerating, 100 restaurants, 40 places to have a drink in the evening, depending on the area and what you want to do, a private taxi company, kindergartens, English teachers, hairdressers… absolutely everything.”
On most days, including matchdays, players eat many meals together, and partners are also included to make a group that is bound tightly together.
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Mendez adds: “Even on days off, I say to my partner, ‘Let’s see who we meet for breakfast today’. Or after training and lunch at the Ciudad Deportiva, someone else says, ‘Who’s coming for coffee?’, or, ‘Who’s coming for dinner?’. Maybe we’d go and there are eight or nine of us. That’s not normal in a Primera Division dressing room.”
Brais Mendez (centre) celebrates scoring against Inter Milan in the Champions League this season (Ander Gillenea/AFP via Getty Images)
The family atmosphere does not mean high standards are not demanded at training. Alguacil is not always as amiable as he might appear in public, while assistants Mikel Labaka and Ion Ansotegi (also both Basques and former La Real first-team players) have key roles.
“Imanol is very direct, very intense and he pushes you every day in the same way, from Mikel Oyarzabal, captain and flagship, to a ‘canterano’ (youth player) training with the first team,” Mendez says. “Every day. And that’s the secret. The rest of the coaching staff is the other face, the good cop. What struck me most when I arrived was the way they train, especially the boys coming up from the reserves, their intensity and desire.”
The week after La Real were drawn against PSG in December’s last-16 draw, the club held its annual general meeting at San Sebastian’s striking modernist Kursaal Palacio de Congresos.
Aperribay recalled how in 2009 the club was in administration, with liabilities of €40.3million. But 2022-23 accounts reported cash reserves of €62.3m, and the 2023-24 budget was a club record €161m.
Those are big numbers for Real Sociedad, but still well behind the €802million revenue PSG reported last season. The Qatar-backed Parisians’ wealth has attracted superstars Lionel Messi and Neymar in recent years, and Mbappe’s annual salary is €75m after tax, before any bonuses.
La Real’s entire wage limit is €125million, the sixth-biggest in La Liga.
“This tie is a challenge,” Olabe says. “We want to test ourselves against other models. We are proud to take on a model like PSG’s. We know it is very difficult to win trophies, very few teams do. But we want to be ambitious, to aspire, to expose ourselves.”
During their early-1980s golden age, La Real won two La Liga titles, and reached the European Cup semi-finals in 1982-83, losing 3-2 on aggregate to eventual winners Hamburg. Since then, there have been just two seasons in the Champions League — in 2003-04, they were knocked out by Lyon in the last 16 and 10 years later, they finished bottom of their group.
However, this year’s side have experienced big occasions in the Europa League in recent years, including a group-stage win at Manchester United’s Old Trafford last season.
“To reach this point, we have had to grow, and to mature,” Olabe says. “Playing many great clubs in other competitions has allowed us to keep measuring ourselves, evaluating what we are doing, where we can improve. The competition is always your best teacher. Everyone — the club, the coach, the players — has been learning along the way.”
With excitement building in Gipuzkoa since December’s draw, it is maybe not surprising that domestic form has slipped. Alguacil’s team have gone three league games without a victory after Saturday’s 1-0 home defeat by Osasuna, although they have progressed to the Copa del Rey semi-finals, where they play Mallorca at home in a second leg on February 27, having already drawn 0-0 away.
Still, nobody in La Real’s dressing room believes they are an underdog against PSG.
“It might sound crazy, but we’re not afraid of anyone,” Mendez says. “We’ve shown that we can compete and beat anyone, we’re 100 per cent confident in ourselves. We got PSG? Well, let’s go for PSG. If it had been Bayern Munich? The same thing.”
La Real are aware that many of their players, including Mendez, Zubimendi, Oyarzabal, Le Normand and Japan international Takefusa Kubo, have admirers at richer and historically bigger clubs. But there is a feeling within the group that they can do something special together. It was significant that Kubo extended his contract until 2029 just two days before the PSG first leg this week.
Zu zara mailua,
Zu zara aizkora,
Gu gara egurra,
Gu gara burnia.💙 Desde Japón hasta Donostia. Tan lejos y tan cerca. , .#Take2029 | #WeareReal pic.twitter.com/N2YaRi7Y3C
— Real Sociedad Fútbol (@RealSociedad) February 12, 2024
Olabe stresses that the tie against PSG is not “kill or be killed”, that La Real’s project is about much more than just one game, or one season. Whatever happens over the next few weeks, the focus will continue to be on stability, incremental progress, and staying close to their roots and their community.
“We want to be the best Real Sociedad possible, not to copy anybody else,” he says. “We focus on where we can improve, to be better at developing our talents, and to keep complementing those we develop ourselves with the best players we can find around the world. We are always looking for opportunities, challenges, to keep growing, keep improving, keep learning.”
Additional reporting: Mario Cortegana
(Top photo: Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)
