Real Sociedad's relegation - good but avoidable

Thursday night saw Barcelona win at the home of Real Sociedad, Anoeta, for the first time in ten years. That last victory for the Catalans was during the 2006-07 season which saw Real Sociedad's forty season stint in the top flight end with relegation. A relegation that arguably rejuvenated the club with faith in youth restored in the following three seasons spent in the segunda.

The relegation may not have been as much of a shock as Real Zaragoza's the following season but it nonetheless was still a slight surprise. The surprise element was the relegation came almost four years to the day that le txuriurdin cruelly lost the Liga title they deserved. That 2002-03 title challenge was largely thanks to the prolific strikeforce of Nihat and Dark Kovacevic.

Nihat with Real Sociedad

The season of 2006-07 may well have ended with Real Sociedad preserving their top flight status had they managed to keep Nihat at the club. The Turk left in the summer of 2006 to Villarreal, champions league semi-finalists a few weeks previously, on a bosman. Nihat fired twenty-three goals in the title challenge season and as the Basques struggled in the following three seasons, his goals kept them in the division.
His absence for the 2006-07 season was felt. Real Sociedad went from scoring forty-nine (03-04), forty-seven (04-05) and forty-eight (05-06) to just thirty-two in the relegation season. The impact Nihat had on the team was evidently vital. Strike partner Kovacevic was still at the club but he only managed three strikes in the season. The top scorer was Brazilian Savio with five and the relegation was down to simply not scoring enough.

José Barkero started the season as coach but after a disastrous start he was fired and replaced by Miguel Lotina. Lotina would be given the rest of the season. For a chunk of the season Real Sociedad were cut adrift of safety, by twelve points at one stage. By round thirty-two that deficit was cut to three points and the fight was back on. However as highlighted above goal scoring was a major problem. At this stage the Anoeta club had scored just twenty-three times. Bottom club Gimnàstic had scored seven more just to highlight the problem even further. Round thirty-five saw Real Sociedad win and even score three. A 3-1 home win over fellow strugglers Celta de Vigo leaving La Real a point off safety and rivals Athletic Bilbao, defending their never relegated status.

The gap increased to four points with Athletic Bilbao beat Real Mallorca and Real Sociedad defeated at nearby Osasuna. A stalemate at home to Racing Santander rendered the task of avoiding relegation very difficult and out if their hands.

A 3-3 draw away at Valencia which featured own goals from Víctor López and Daniel Estrada sealed their fate. Athletic Bilbao's 2-0 win over Levante meant even a win at Mestalla would be in vain. La Real ended as the joint lowest scorers with thirteenth placed Deportivo. The Galicians making a strong case for their "dull" football in the next few seasons regularly scoring just enough goals. However defensively Real Sociedad had the best record of the bottom seven. Their defensive record was just two conceded more than Deportivo which just further illustrates how strange a season it was. There was just two goals conceded in the difference between Real Sociedad and Deportivo, yet the Galicians ended up twelve points better off. Talk about efficiency.

The relegation offered a chance to get the club back on track. In the three year spell in the Segunda a certain Antoine Griezmann broke into the first team and well we know how good he turned out. Promoted back to the top tier in 2010, La Real have been relatively free of relegation trouble. A champions league qualification in 2012-13 with Griezmann in fine form continued the rise of the club. Now under Eusébio Sacristán hopes of another return to the champions league are not too far off the mark. In many ways that relegation in 2007 was with the benefit of hindsight a blessing in disguise.  I still maintain they would've stayed up with Nihat involved.