Jon Gorrotxategi was on hand to secure a famous 3-2 victory for Real Sociedad. Photograph: Juan Herrero/EPAView image in fullscreenJon Gorrotxategi was on hand to secure a famous 3-2 victory for Real Sociedad.
Photograph: Juan Herrero/EPALa LigaReal Sociedad release pressure with surreal victory in a Basque derby like no otherJon Gorrotxategi’s stoppage-time winner against Athletic Club summed up an epic back-and-forth contestSid LoweMon 3 Nov 2025 15.21 GMTLast modified on Mon 3 Nov 2025 15.35 GMTShareThe 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 the way and supporters into each other’s 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 “soul”, he said, the day ending with Real Sociedad’s players standing before their fans, singing together.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: “This incredible energy was let in.” 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.Failed signings, fan fury and resignations: how Fiorentina became a crisis club | Nicky BandiniRead moreThere 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’s 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, 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’s 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’t fool you, it is ferocious.
Which is also what makes it fun.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’t far off either.View image in fullscreenAnder Barrenetxea (left) played through the pain to provide the opener. Photograph: Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty ImagesIf 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’re 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.Where the ball came straight to him.Barrenetxea couldn’t 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 Méndez, who at the second attempt scored, the ball bouncing back off Unai Simón. Barrenetxea couldn’t move, couldn’t join the celebration, but he had provided the opener.
He had been on the pitch for eight seconds.Barrenetxea’s derby was over; everyone else’s 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.
Gonçalo Guedes scored a lovely second for la Real just after half-time – the only one of the five that wasn’t very derby – 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.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’s area on 91.41 and there was Gorrotxategi. “All I wanted to do was shoot, because I could see that the game was ending, slipping away from us,” he said.
“But I hit it terribly.” 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 Martín throwing himself out the way, Gorrotxategi hit it as hard as he could, an ‘ave that of a finish ripping into the net; 37,685 people exploded and a couple more fireworks did, too – a tradition that tells those out in the Bay of Biscay that la Real have scored a goal.View image in fullscreenAthletic equalised twice in a frenzied derby. Photograph: Juan Herrero/EPANot 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.
“If you could measure the feeling on this on the Richter scale, this was a quake,” she wrote in AS, “and Gorro was the epicentre.” For the first time in 178 derbies, someone had won in added time. They had deserved it too, AS said: “The derby is all about who has the most heart, and la Real are 11 cardiologists.”skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Football DailyFree daily newsletterKick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of footballEnter your email address Sign upPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties.
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For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion“There is no better feeling than beating your eternal rival in stoppage time,” 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 Sergi 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 “a shout that came with the strength of all Gipuzkoa and said: ‘This is different now.’” As Mikel Recalde put it in Noticias de Gipuzkoa: “La 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.”Gorrotxategi had been Górriz and Zamora in one, everyone seemed to be saying.
Alberto Górriz is the man whose scuffed attempt on goal accidentally set up Jesús María Zamora to win Real Sociedad the league in 1981, later saying: “My worst shot was my best pass.” Now Gorro had gone and played both roles. “I hit it with all my soul, all the more so seeing the minute we were in.
The feeling of happiness is incredible,” he said. “This goal is incredible: for the situation, the game, the moment.
I’ll 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’ goal: they backed us to the end and the feeling is incredible. I think something has clicked.
We’re in a different dynamic now. There are things we need to improve in footballing terms but every game we go to war now.”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 Muñoz 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.
“It outdid all expectations,” Sergi Francisco said. “If we could have written it, it would have been something like this.”Quick GuideLa Liga resultsShowGetafe 2-1 GironaVillarreal 4-0 Rayo VallecanoAtlético Madrid 3-0 SevillaReal Sociedad 3-2 Athletic BilbaoReal Madrid 4-0 ValenciaLevante 1-2 Celta VigoAlavés 2-1 EspanyolBarcelona 3-1 ElcheReal Betis 3-0 Real MallorcaMonday’s fixture:Real Oviedo v OsasunaWas this helpful?Thank you for your feedback.
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Source: The Guardian Sport
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