The goal that won the Basque derby was exactly the way the goal that wins the Basque derby is supposed to be but never had been before. Wet, wild and absolutely wellied. In the rain, the chaos and added time, the fifth of an epic fight perfectly imperfect: a first attempt scuffed, a second smashed in from six yards, sending teammates diving out of the way and supporters into each other\u2019s arms. And scored by the footballer from the frontier, born on the border with Bizkaia, another Gipuzkoan and another academy product playing his first derby. Jon Gorrotxategi hit it with his shin; he also hit it with his \u201csoul\u201d, he said, the day ending with Real Sociedad\u2019s players standing before their fans, singing together.<\/p>\n
It had started there too, their big blue bus edging its way towards the Reale Arena, circling round past the velodrome and the mini stadium, thousands of fans lining the route, fireworks going off, scarves and flags swirling. Pulling up before the gates, the brakes went on, the doors opened and Sergio Francisco, their manager, said: \u201cThis incredible energy was let in.\u201d The players got out and walked the final stretch to the stadium, feeling their way through the smoke, passing fans with their palms out, all high fives and hope. Stopping in a line, looking over the endless faces, listening to them sing, they joined in, clapping out the beat. And then they disappeared inside and defeated Athletic Club 3-2.<\/p>\n
There was something in that scene at the start and how they celebrated at the end that showed how Real Sociedad had needed this, and not just because it\u2019s the derby or even because they had become the first of these great rivals to ever win one in stoppage time, although that is reason enough. This is a fixture like no other, preceded by poetry<\/a>, striped shirts in blue and red mixed in the old town and in the stands. A match where they drink together, sit together and kick together, lumps taken out of each other\u2019s legs; where everyone knows exactly what it means, 22 of the 30 players from the Basque Country (including Navarre), 24 of them academy graduates; and where for all the friendliness, which shouldn\u2019t fool you, it is ferocious. Which is also what makes it fun.<\/p>\n On Saturday especially, something about this derby just felt, well, like a derby. Right, somehow. It felt right that it rained, right that what made it good was not so much the quality as the commitment, right that it went from 1-0 to 1-1, 2-1 to 2-2, and right that the winner should come in the dying, desperate minutes the way it did, nothing quite happening the way it was supposed to, the ball bouncing about in the area until Gorrotxategi belted it and blew everything to bits. It felt right that it should be him, one of six la Real players from their home province of Gipuzkoa, the smallest in Spain. And right that if the winner was the derby distilled, the previous four goals weren\u2019t far off either.<\/p>\n Ander Barrenetxea (left) played through the pain to provide the opener. Photograph: Juan Manuel Serrano Arce\/Getty Images<\/p>\n If it had ended that way, the way it had started fit, too: in fact, the moment with which it all began was even better, possibly even the best thing you\u2019re going to see all year. They had been playing for 35 minutes and not a lot had happened when off the ball Ander Barrenetxea went down, the 23-year-old winger lying face in his hands. Medical staff came dashing on, bandaged him up and helped him hobble off, applauded all the way, barely able to move but not finished yet. He had one last thing he had to do. So, despite standing there, hopping from foot to foot, grimacing every time he touched the floor, pain hidden behind his palms, the doctor gazing at him with a look of pity, he went back out.<\/p>\n Where the ball came straight to him.<\/p>\n Barrenetxea couldn\u2019t walk but he ran. The first two steps he lurched forwards, left foot first and left foot second too, painful just to watch. Limping up the left, he took one touch to control with his right, one touch to cross with his left, the thigh hurting too much to continue. As he pulled up, the ball came off Mikel Oyarzabal and reached Brais M\u00e9ndez, who at the second attempt scored, the ball bouncing back off Unai Sim\u00f3n. Barrenetxea couldn\u2019t move, couldn\u2019t join the celebration, but he had provided the opener. He had been on the pitch for eight seconds.<\/p>\n Barrenetxea\u2019s derby was over; everyone else\u2019s had just begun. Amid the frenzy, Real Sociedad were just about the better side but Athletic kept coming back at them, the ball bouncing about for Gorka Guruzeta to sweep in the first equaliser. Gon\u00e7alo Guedes scored a lovely second for la Real just after half-time \u2013 the only one of the five that wasn\u2019t very derby \u2013 but with 11 minutes left Athletic equalised again and this time it was very, very derby. A long delivery, two looping headers, a half save, the ball coming down off the bar, bringing a rain shower with it, somehow kept in by Alejandro Rego, and Robert Navarro bundling it past the players falling in front of him and over the line. Seven touches, and Athletic had equalised. Via a former la Real player.<\/p>\n Athletic equalised twice in a frenzied derby. Photograph: Juan Herrero\/EPA<\/p>\n The rain came down and the tensions went up. Ernesto Valverde, the Athletic manager, was on his haunches in a mac, hood up, gazing across the pitch like a fisher looking out at storm when the ball dropped near the edge of Athletic\u2019s area on 91.41 and there was Gorrotxategi. \u201cAll I wanted to do was shoot, because I could see that the game was ending, slipping away from us,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I hit it terribly.\u201d Swiping, more than a dozen men in front of him, his shot scuffed and somehow bounced through the bodies to Oyarzabal, who pulled it back. And there, thundering in to follow his first fluffed attempt, invited by fate to have another go, was Gorrotxategi. On the edge of the six-yard box, Jon Mart\u00edn throwing himself out the way, Gorrotxategi hit it as hard as he could, an \u2018ave that of a finish ripping into the net; 37,685 people exploded and a couple more fireworks did, too \u2013 a tradition that tells those out in the Bay of Biscay that la Real have scored a goal<\/a>.<\/p>\n Not just any goal, either. One local reporter was quoting Eduardo Galeano, who claimed the goal was the only orgasm left in modern times. The earth had moved, Marta Gonzalo said. \u201cIf you could measure the feeling on this on the Richter scale, this was a quake,\u201d she wrote in AS, \u201cand Gorro was the epicentre.\u201d For the first time in 178 derbies, someone had won in added time. They had deserved it too, AS said: \u201cThe derby is all about who has the most heart, and la Real are 11 cardiologists.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no better feeling than beating your eternal rival in stoppage time,\u201d El Diario Vasco claimed, and yet this was it: because there is winning the derby and there is doing it when you really, really need to. After a solitary win in nine weeks and new coach Francisco on edge, a side too good to struggle slipping towards the relegation zone, la Real had now won two league games in a row, the paper describing the goal as \u201ca shout that came with the strength of all Gipuzkoa and said: \u2018This is different now.\u2019\u201d As Mikel Recalde put it in Noticias de Gipuzkoa: \u201cLa Real are alive. They have soul. They feel their colours. They love their people. And, once in a while, they make them happy like they did tonight. Life can be wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n Quick GuideLa Liga resultsShow<\/p>\n Getafe 2-1 Girona<\/p>\n Villarreal 4-0 Rayo Vallecano<\/p>\n Atl\u00e9tico Madrid 3-0 Sevilla<\/p>\n Real Sociedad 3-2 Athletic Bilbao<\/p>\n Real Madrid 4-0 Valencia<\/p>\n Levante 1-2 Celta Vigo<\/p>\n Alav\u00e9s 2-1 Espanyol<\/p>\n Barcelona 3-1 Elche<\/p>\n Real Betis 3-0 Real Mallorca<\/p>\n Monday’s fixture:<\/p>\n Real Oviedo v Osasuna<\/p>\n Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n Gorrotxategi had been G\u00f3rriz and Zamora in one, everyone seemed to be saying. Alberto G\u00f3rriz is the man whose scuffed attempt on goal accidentally set up Jes\u00fas Mar\u00eda Zamora to win Real Sociedad the league in 1981, later saying: \u201cMy worst shot was my best pass.\u201d Now Gorro had gone and played both roles. \u201cI hit it with all my soul, all the more so seeing the minute we were in. The feeling of happiness is incredible,\u201d he said. \u201cThis goal is incredible: for the situation, the game, the moment. I\u2019ll watch it back loads of times. The players were laughing at me saying I never score; I told them I was saving it up. This is the fans\u2019 goal: they backed us to the end and the feeling is incredible. I think something has clicked. We\u2019re in a different dynamic now. There are things we need to improve in footballing terms but every game we go to war now.\u201d<\/p>\n At the whistle, once they had got the fight out the way, players briefly piling in, la Real lined up before their supporters for the second time, full-back Aihen Mu\u00f1oz taking the mic as they sang. The communion was complete, the day finishing the way it had started, a way that felt right, like a derby should. Watching them, their coach felt proud; this was his first derby, too. \u201cIt outdid all expectations,\u201d Francisco said. \u201cIf we could have written it, it would have been something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The goal that won the Basque derby was exactly the way the goal that wins the Basque derby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-270339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}