Marked for Michael Cunningham
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Nov 2040
There were 11 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad19 Nov 2040
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Real Sociedad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad19 Nov 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Real Sociedad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom19 Nov 2040
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Oliver Hublík has agreed terms with Betis for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad19 Nov 2040
Hugo Camberos falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match17 Nov 2040
0‑1 to Burgos, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom19 Nov 2040
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Market19 Nov 2040
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jon Karrikaburu signs something — a contract at Real Sociedad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Player ratings19 Nov 2040
Successful dribbles: 10. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Nov 2040
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Michael Cunningham: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match7 Nov 2040
A 1‑1 win over Elche, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad12 Nov 2040
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings12 Nov 2040
Hugo Camberos, 33, rolls back the years — 7.81
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.81 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings12 Nov 2040
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match10 Nov 2040
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Angelos Neofytou. 3‑1 against Alavés, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces12 Nov 2040
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match10 Nov 2040
3 goals inside twenty minutes with Angelos Neofytou in the middle of it, and Alavés unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Squad12 Nov 2040
Words at Real Sociedad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bálint Geiger is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Oct 2040
Bálint Geiger damages knee ligaments — 17 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 17 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad15 Oct 2040
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad15 Oct 2040
Arsen Zakharyan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad15 Oct 2040
Words at Real Sociedad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Camberos is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The terraces15 Oct 2040
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match13 Oct 2040
A 1‑1 draw with Betis leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Player ratings15 Oct 2040
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market15 Oct 2040
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Carlos Alonso signs something — a contract at Real Sociedad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Market15 Oct 2040
Experience through the door at Real Sociedad
Killian Prouchet arrives at 35 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Aug 2040
A knee injury of the worst kind for Bálint Geiger
80 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Real Sociedad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market13 Aug 2040
Levante come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Real Sociedad did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad13 Aug 2040
Arsen Zakharyan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad13 Aug 2040
Sergio Gómez falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad13 Aug 2040
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Michael Cunningham is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market13 Aug 2040
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Real Sociedad, another week without a signature from Jalis Bouabdellah.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Dec 2039
A fracture rules Jon Aramburu out for 57 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Real Sociedad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad19 Dec 2039
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad19 Dec 2039
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Real Sociedad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad19 Dec 2039
Carlos Alonso was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match17 Dec 2039
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Real Sociedad can tell you which week it ends in.
Player ratings19 Dec 2039
The cruellest goal, and it is Tayvon Gray's
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Real Sociedad will not try tonight.
The terraces19 Dec 2039
Everybody has an opinion about Luka Sučić
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Market19 Dec 2039
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Real Sociedad know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Match17 Dec 2039
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Mallorca defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Nov 2039
Jon Aramburu breaks a bone — 92 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 92 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad14 Nov 2039
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match9 Nov 2039
Valladolid are out and Real Sociedad go through, 2‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match9 Nov 2039
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 95th minute. Valladolid will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings14 Nov 2039
Two goals and a mark of 8.25 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings14 Nov 2039
Jalil Conteh goes up and wins it — 7.86
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.86 for the rest of it.
Squad14 Nov 2039
Carlos Alonso was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad14 Nov 2039
Sergio Gómez falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match12 Nov 2039
A 2‑1 win over Atlético Madrid, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.