When the final whistle went at the end of the Basque derby, Iker Muniain embraced the referee and then made his way through the noise and the rain straight to Alex Remiro. By the time he got there, Iñaki Williams was already hugging the goalkeeper and soon more Athletic players came to comfort him. The clock had shown 90.47 when Remiro made the mistake that cost his team victory and there was little consolation, just a lost expression, but that didn’t stop them trying. “I tried to raise his spirits, give him affection, tell him it it’s OK, it doesn’t matter,” Muniain said, standing pitchside still catching his breath.
Muniain and Alex Remiro are not teammates, not any more. Remiro is the Real Sociedad goalkeeper, Muniain the Athletic captain whose shot had just raced past him and into the net to make it 1-1 at the end of a wet, wild night. And if anyone knew it did matter, this Sunday especially, it was them. Which is why they were there together when it was over, Muniain laying a hand upon Remiro’s shoulder and looking for the right words. A goalkeeper who admits bad moments always follow you home, Remiro’s look meanwhile revealed this one will follow him further than that. The first league goal Real had conceded at home this season could hardly have come at a worse time.
The board was just going up on a Basque derby that was the way it’s supposed to be at last, the first played before fans for 630 days, when it happened. Real Sociedad were 1-0 up, Alexander Isak having scored from the spot early in the second half, and Athletic were down to 10 men. Better still for the home supporters, it was Iñigo Martínez, the man who had walked out on them and crossed the divide, who had given away the penalty – the sixth he has conceded at Athletic, three of them against his former club – and who had been sent off. When the card was shown, Remiro had leapt into the air celebrating. Now the fans were doing the same. Backs turned to the pitch, arms locked together, they bounced.
How they had missed this. “This is the game I look forward to winning more than any other and that’s true of everyone who feels Real Sociedad,” the coach Imanol Alguacil had said the day before as the rain poured at Zubieta, and this time especially. There have been three meetings over the last e18 months, sure, but it wasn’t the same, not even when one was the most historic Copa del Rey final there has been. That much was shown by Athletic and Real insisting on postponing the final. Few, if any clubs would have held on so long to get their people in, aware that that’s the whole point.
Now here they were again, miles better late than never. Sunday started with the bertso derbi, the Basque street poetry sing-off won by Athletic or la Real depending on which paper you read, and ended with 21 players on the pitch of which 18 had been through the youth systems at one of these two clubs. Fans drank together and sat together. Tickets were sold out, the Reale Arena packing in 37,066 – its highest attendance ever. And they belted out the club’s anthem, holding aloft a tifo in blue and white and the colours of the Ikurriña, the Basque flag. Then they played, the noise never falling.
It had been frantic, fast, and if there was not a huge amount of football, it had been quite fun too, the tension and ferocity making up for what it lacked in finesses. Athletic had more shots, 11 to eight, and more corners, eight to two. Remiro had made three sharp saves. And Aritz Elustondo had produced two superb interceptions to deny Williams, the first after just sixty-two seconds. But the threat hadn’t been overwhelming at all – in fact it had only occasionally been apparent – and now it appeared to have passed. Martin Zubimendi was in control, the defence had been reinforced and Real Sociedad, the Copa del Rey winners, were on the verge of defeating their rivals again and climbing three points clear, confirmation perhaps of their candidacy for the title. Only once had they reached week 11 on more points and now they were about to add three more, racking up an eighth clean sheet in 12 league games.
Bad Moon Rising was belting round the ground, scarves twirling. Tell me how it feels, the opening line runs. But then Athletic got a free kick on the top left corner of the area, Julen Lobete fouling Muniain as he cut inside. Muniain placed the ball. “It was wet. I wanted to hit hard and on target, thinking that someone might deflect it,” he said, “Remiro tried to clear it but those kinds of balls are difficult.” His shot bent towards the near post and the Real Sociedad goalkeeper dived forwards, fists out like Superman. Rather than punching clear, though, he misjudged the flight – his and the ball’s – and it went off his knuckles and into the top of the net. It was the 91st minute and 1-1.
In the top corner of the ground, 543 Athletic fans went wild. All around it, maybe a hundred more did the same, figures in red and white leaping from within the sea of blue and white. Muniain sprinted towards the bench, which was sprinting towards him, and leapt into the arms of Marcelino García Toral. His players had resisted again – they have only been beaten once this season – and Athletic’s manager wore a massive smile. They had deserved this, he said afterwards. “The draw stings but I’m proud,” his opposite number Imanol Alguacil insisted.
No one was more stung than Remiro. In midweek, Australian keeper Matty Ryan had produced an astonishing performance at Celta in only his second league appearance of the season. Remiro had immediately returned to the side but now this had happened and against them, a derby decided by two men who crossed sides. On Sunday evening, Iñigo Martínez, an ex-Real Sociedad player had been sent off and given away the penalty that seemed to have gifted his former club the victory, fans laughing as he left. And Remiro, an ex-Athletic player, had gifted his former club the equaliser.
Not that the cases are quite the same. Born in Navarre, raised at Lezama, Remiro never actually played a first team game with Athletic. One Friday afternoon after training in 2018, he was called into a room with the then Athletic president Josu Urrutia and the former sporting director José Mari Amorrutu and told that if he didn’t sign a new contract he wouldn’t play. Kepa was leaving, an opportunity opening up, but Remiro had been sent out on loan twice and wasn’t convinced the chance was real. The pressure helped him make up his mind: rather than bowing to it, he decided to depart, even if it meant a season not playing. With Iago Herrerín getting injured, Unai Simón, the fourth-choice keeper who would soon become first for club and country, was hurriedly recalled from his loan at Elche where he had only been for 20 days and Athletic followed through on the threat: Remiro was left out.
Athletic Club equalise in stoppage time in the derby through an Iker Muniain free kick! 😱😱
— Premier Sports (@PremierSportsTV) October 31, 2021
A moment to forget for Alex Remiro in the Real Sociedad goal 😬 pic.twitter.com/saOJSuDUha
A year later, he joined Real Sociedad. When he won the Copa del Rey with them, defeating Athletic in the final, he posted a video that emulated Williams’ “I’m so tired” celebration from the Super Cup three months earlier. It didn’t seem a particularly big deal, but it was soon turned into one. Remiro insisted that he just thought it a funny line, that he was not mocking Williams and apologised to Athletic’s players when they faced each other in the league immediately after. “Some said it was out of order, others that they didn’t care, and others not to worry about it, but I felt ashamed,” he later admitted. “I didn’t like seeing the video out there but I learnt from it: not to be a dickhead next time there’s a moment of euphoria.”
The next time they met was anything but euphoric. Remiro looked devastated, eyes gone. Teammates came to him – Diego Rico literally lifted his chin up – but it was like he was lost. “He’s gutted because of the way the goal happened. His error is the most visible but it was a series of errors,” Zubimendi said. “He kept us alive until the end: he made great saves,” Alguacil insisted, “football is that: getting it right and getting it wrong. Today he got it right lots of times and got it wrong just once. He’s a professional and no doubt that tomorrow he will be up for the next game again.” Even former Real Sociedad goalkeeper Sander Westerveld, there the last time they started a season this well, leading the league early, not losing until February – against Athletic, inevitably – and chasing all the way to the line, offered support.
None of which is especially unusual but they weren’t the first to Remiro, the symbol of a rivalry that’s still different to the rest. Instead, it was Iñaki Williams and Iker Muniain, the Athletic captain who had stood and applauded la Real as they lifted the trophy at the end of the cup final they had waited for their whole lives, and whose shot flew past Remiro on the night when the fans finally returned to make the derby the kind of day it’s supposed to be.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Real Sociedad | 12 | 7 | 25 |
| 2 | Real Madrid | 11 | 14 | 24 |
| 3 | Sevilla | 11 | 12 | 24 |
| 4 | Atletico Madrid | 11 | 8 | 22 |
| 5 | Real Betis | 12 | 4 | 21 |
| 6 | Rayo Vallecano | 11 | 6 | 19 |
| 7 | Osasuna | 12 | -1 | 19 |
| 8 | Athletic Bilbao | 11 | 4 | 18 |
| 9 | Barcelona | 11 | 4 | 16 |
| 10 | Valencia | 12 | 1 | 16 |
| 11 | Espanyol | 12 | -1 | 14 |
| 12 | Mallorca | 12 | -6 | 14 |
| 13 | Villarreal | 11 | 1 | 12 |
| 14 | Celta Vigo | 11 | -4 | 10 |
| 15 | Elche | 12 | -6 | 10 |
| 16 | Alaves | 11 | -8 | 10 |
| 17 | Cadiz | 12 | -8 | 9 |
| 18 | Granada | 10 | -6 | 8 |
| 19 | Levante | 11 | -9 | 6 |
| 20 | Getafe | 12 | -12 | 6 |
