Imagine winning the Copa del Rey. It is the fourth time in history, the biggest explosion of joy in 40 years, perhaps ever. It requires 120 exhausting minutes and a nerve-shredding penalty shootout, so it is nearly midnight on Saturday when Pablo Marin, a ballboy the last time you reached the final, takes you over the line. You leave the stadium after 2am on Sunday. You get back to the hotel at 2.39am, with a disco set up on the second floor. Taxis arrive at 4.45am, celebrations continue elsewhere, and the bus is waiting to depart at 10.15am, with the partying guests already awake or never having slept at all.
En route to the airport, someone realises one of you did not make it, and another cab is hurriedly called. You fly 1,000km north, the drinks trolley emptied, touch down around two, carry the trophy across the runway in Hondarribia, and do it all over again. The song that accompanied you on your most joyous journey, borrowed from Bad Bunny, demands coffee in the morning and rum in the evening. The manager prefers gin and tonic and admits that maybe there was an extra beer or two. A crowd waits at Zubieta, not so much a training ground as a concept, to welcome you home, but that is nothing compared to what awaits beyond.
More beers, another bus. From behind dark glasses, you climb aboard at six o'clock the following evening, onto the top deck and around Donosti: from Anoeta to the tune of Daddy Yankee's Limbo, along Avenida Madrid and past Plaza Pio XII, Calle Urbieta, Avenida Libertad, and the Boulevard to Alderdi Eder and the town hall. People line the route and climb traffic lights; any perch will do. More than 100,000 people are there, in a city of 190,000 that has never seen a celebration like it. Onto the balcony, into the songs. This is the best day of my life, says Take Kubo, speaking for everyone.
Nothing else can match this, nothing else matters. It goes on, with people to see and hug, even the media. By the time Carlos Soler and Marin are welcomed onto a radio show broadcasting from the Hotel Londres, on the edge of the most beautiful bay, it is almost midnight again. Please do not keep them long, the press officer says: they are back at work in the morning. But, yes, good luck with that. At last you stumble in for the session you could really do without, mercifully switched to midday Tuesday, still in a bit of a state. That is when someone says: lads, we have a game tomorrow. It is Getafe.
Getafe are the hangover from hell, the team that gives you a headache even when you have not been drinking. Caricatured more than any other team, made into a meme, whined about like no one else. Some of it is unfair, and what they are doing is absolutely extraordinary, sitting in sixth place, for goodness sake. But some of it is true. Built by Jose Bordalas, Getafe are the team likeliest to break the game and their opponents. They commit the most fouls, suffer the second most, have the most cards, aerial duels, and long balls. They launch it most and keep it least. Hard as nails, they are the last team you want to face after a three-day fiesta.
It is more than a game, it is a chore, El Diario Vasco declared. The dentist is paying a visit to Anoeta. It is not as if Real Sociedad could bin it off, however much they felt like it. We want more, the manager insisted. When Matarazzo took over, la Real had been just two points from relegation. The president admitted to asking AI if he was a good fit, and it said no. But beaten only three times in the four months since, by the teams in second, third, and fourth, they came into this rearranged round of midweek fixtures as cup winners and just four points behind Betis in the fifth and probable final Champions League slot with seven games to go. This was an opportunity, even if the timing and the team they were up against could not be less opportune.
It is a challenge, Matarazzo said on Tuesday morning. Yes, we had a long week preparing the final. We played 120 minutes. We have had one, two, three days of celebration, but last night the boys got to bed at a good time. Maybe we had an extra beer or two, and there was the release of all the tension too. But I am optimistic we will be ready to go. We need to be aware of how Getafe play: you have to be ready to fight in order to play football.
Getafe gonna Getafe. Before kick-off on Wednesday night, they lined up by the halfway line and gave Real Sociedad a guard of honour, applauding them as they went past carrying the cup. After it, they lined up on the edge of their area, did not let them past again, and won 1-0 without a shot on target. That is football, papa, as Bordalas is fond of saying.
Starting with only three of those who had begun the final on Saturday, Real Sociedad won an early penalty, but Brais Mendez hit the post. Orri Oskarsson, star of la Real's version of Cafe con Ron, missed a great chance. Jon Aramburu hit the post. Ander Barrenetxea saw one shot go over and another cleared off the line. Duje Caleta-Car could not reach the ball, blocked a yard from goal. Thirteen shots, four on target, but the only one that went in was a Jon Gorrotxategi header into his own net.
At the end, it kicked off a bit: Juan Iglesias accused Mikel Oyarzabal of covering his mouth and saying something about his wife, while the Donosti media denounced the visitors as an insult to football, a team of cheats, playing a totally different sport. La Real had been beaten for only the fourth time in 2026, fifth place slipping from them. Now they are seven points and three places away, brought back to earth by Bordalas's team, which is the way it tends to be.
Only, they were not really brought down. We lacked energy in the first half, Matarazzo said after. Well, yes. But there were no complaints and no regrets, and nor should there be. No game could eclipse something generational. As the phrase goes, no one can ever take this dance from them. Not just winger Wesley's mum and Bixio Gorriz, Copa del Rey winner in 1987, salsaing into the small hours, but the whole thing: the cup that injured full-back Alvaro Odriozola, who did not even play, said he would not swap for anything in humanity, insisting he had never walked on water but this must be how it feels. The cup that was only the fourth in their history and was worth at least two, at last played out before fans unlike 2021, Oyarzabal calling these double celebrations. The cup that they took around Anoeta again on Wednesday night, applauded round the pitch after Getafe had gone. The loss did not last long, but this would last forever.
Nothing could take that away: the extraordinary revival this season and something deeper happening beyond it. Real Sociedad's second cup in five years is as good a record over the last decade as anyone bar Barcelona, and a success secured with 10 players who had come through the academy. Eight of them are from Gipuzkoa, the smallest province in Spain. Nothing could take it from Oyarzabal, captain, academy product, and a goalscorer in all six finals he has ever played. From Unai Marrero, the backup goalkeeper and Real fan who became the hero just as he was against Osasuna in the last 16. From Marin, whom Marrero kissed on the cheek and wished luck. From all of them. From Matarazzo's astonishing journey from New Jersey, refusing to ever turn back when most would have done. But then, he said, I would not be in a Copa del Rey final.
And that, these last four days showed, was everything. The celebrations were a moment to share, to live: from Elustondo emulating Imanol Alguacil's celebration from 2021 and introducing his teammates one by one, warmth in every word to the American coach with Italian roots and a German footballing education, addressing them in Basque. Every man who had played since the first round was invited to be on the balcony, Mikel Goti coming home from Cordoba, where he is now on loan, to join them. An entire community was spread out before them, the essence of who they are. It was right to wait a day for the fans to get back from Seville too, right to let loose like never before, whatever waited on Wednesday. Imagine you win the Copa del Rey. Forget objectives, targets; it is about moments like this, always. It is the history we made, Matarazzo said.
