San Sebastián is located in the proud Basque Country, right on the Atlantic Ocean. The city is sophisticated but manageable, characterized by the Basque enthusiasm for sport and the tradition of close social ties. Every football field has to be wrested from the mountain here, as it is at the club campus of Real Sociedad. In such an environment, footballers can optimally develop their talent, says sports director Roberto Olabe in an interview with SPIEGEL: "A scenario without stress," he says.
On Saturday, it is not quite so contemplative. Then Real Sociedad - "La Real", as they are usually called - travels to the most exciting date of the season in Spanish football: the Santiago Bernabéu to Real Madrid. It will not only be a prelude to the matured Norwegian prodigy Martin Ødegaard at the club he still belongs to, but also a ripening test for the team that has shown Spain's most exciting football in recent months. No, not real. La Real.
Had the team not left points at home against Getafe, Levante and Leganés, la Real could lead the table. So they are currently fifth, two points behind leaders Barcelona - and Real Madrid. Atlético, the third top club, have defeated them, and away from home they are the best of the Primera División. The team is young, with an average age of less than 25 years, and they want to dominate - contrary to the newly defensive zeitgeist in La Liga. Their electric football is characterized by players like midfielder Mikel Merino, 23, and in front of him Ødegaard, 20, or Mikel Oyarzabal, 22, homebuyer and national striker.
Olabe leads Real Sociedad for the second time
While the players come from lunch and greet the visitor with a handshake - Merino even digs out his German chunks - Olabe says in a meeting room above the gym: "We want to create something nice and cool, that's the fuel for daily work."
Olabe, 52, spans the arc to the last title fight of the Real: He is currently in office since 2018, but was also in 2003 sporting director, as they led 22 games the table and was runner-up. At that time, French coach Raynald Denoueix opened a lot of eyes with a pass-and-ball-oriented football, says Olabe: The club began to emancipate itself from its defensive counter-tradition, with which he had twice won the championship in the early 1980s. However, 2003 remained an outlier for now, followed by a descent and a threat of bankruptcy. Thanks in part to its own young crop Antoine Griezmann, 2010 went back up.
"We want to create something nice, cool"
The career of Martin Ødegaard, who joined Real Madrid at the age of 15, stalled in recent years. At Real Sociedad, he is now consistently good performances, the Basque club is in fifth place.
Sporting director Roberto Olabe leads Real Sociedad for the second time as he wants to "create something nice and cool" with the club.
Coach Imanol Alguacil has been working in the club for eight years. The former junior coach builds on young players - and lets play offensive football.
This also attracts talents from abroad. In addition to the Norwegian Ødegaard Real Sociedad brought before this season, the former Dortmund Alexander Isak. The striker is usually used as a substitute, but has already scored two goals.
The young team is led by captain Asier Illarramendi. The defensive midfielder sought his luck sometimes at Real Madrid, but returned after two unfortunate years in 2015 back to his training club in San Sebastián.
The former Dortmunder Mikel Merino directs the play of the Basques together with Illarramendi in the central midfield.
The 22-year-old Mikel Oyarzabal matured for Real Sociedad national player. He was involved in eight goals this season.
The youth work has great importance in the club. As successor to the advanced to the pros Alguacil the club took Xabi Alonso as coach of the second team. The former Bayern player became a professional in San Sebastián, he should now train more talents for the first team.
For years La Real, as the club is called in Spain, played in the Anoeta and complained about the moderate mood in the stadium because of the tartan track.
Meanwhile, the stadium was rebuilt - and freed from the railway. With a capacity of nearly 40,000 spectators, the club has become more competitive.
In the year of the 110th birthday, the stars now seem to be particularly good. The club is economically sound and is celebrating a "rebirth with our fans" (Olabe) since he facilitated the Anoeta stadium by the humor-killing athletics track. The atmosphere is now more reminiscent of the mythical, abandoned in 1993 Atocha. In addition to favorable economic conditions Olabe counts the head coach, Imanol Alguacil: a man with a weakness for offensive football and ideal for the young squad. He coached the second team before. This in turn leads now the homecoming Xabi Alonso, strategist of the 2003er-Elf, before he left for his world career to Liverpool, Madrid and Munich. His eagerly awaited coaching career begins with a third league elite age of 20 years.
80 percent of youth players come from Gipuzkoa
The offspring is the most important topic in the club, which already demands the tradition. In the past, the big teams of the Basque clubs came from their own region, often even their own province. Neighbor Athletic Club from Bilbao still cultivates this heritage so rigorously that it only accepts players with Basque roots, birthplace or at least childhood club. Real Sociedad, however, committed the first foreigner in 1989, and in 2003 the first professional from another part of Spain. But the main focus remains on the nearby environment. Olabe leads to the proof of two current numbers: Around 60 percent of the first team were self-trained. And about 80 percent of the youth players come from the province of Gipuzkoa.
Olabe defines the development of players as a core competence. And because it radiates credible, La Real, with its stress-free environment and good football, also interesting to the outside. The striker Alexander Isak, who was contracted from Dortmund this summer, would also have had other offers. Ødegaard anyway, Bayer Leverkusen offered him the chance to play in the Champions League. But he deliberately wanted to go to San Sebastián. And he insisted to Real Madrid on a loan equal to two years.
In Madrid there was also Captain Asier Illarramendi, who was able to train again for the first time after a long injury break and now comes out of the lunch canteen. For 38 million euros, he moved to Madrid in 2013, but in the capital he felt somehow lost. Illarramendi wanted to return to his cuadrilla, as the tight-knit groups of friends that accompany a Basque throughout his life. Back home.
