This one’s for you, Take Kubo. At the end of the Basque derby, as the rest of the Reale Arena emptied into the streets of Donosti for the start of a long Saturday night, the Real Sociedad forward made his way from the Aitor Zabaleta End, where they were still singing his name, to the touchline, where a group of Japanese fans carrying an Ikurrina were waiting for him. “First honour, then glory,” he said when he got there, invited to stand in front of a TV camera and share his thoughts as the star of the show. “Well, the more front pages I get the better, no?” he shrugged. “But maybe the cover will be Robin. Or ‘Oyar’.”
They were candidates, for sure. The man in the carbon mask, Robin Le Normand, had scored the opener in a 3-0 win over Athletic Club before departing because he couldn’t breathe any more. Supplied by a glorious Martín Zubimendi pass, Mikel Oyarzabal had stepped round the goalkeeper to roll in the third, standing arms wide before the second biggest crowd this stadium has ever seen, the largest since the last time the derby came round. And then there was Jon Azanza, who you’ve never heard of but probably have seen by now, the image of this unique rivalry: an engineer and an Athletic fan in red and white smiling in the middle of a bouncing blue sea of supporters.
