Real Sociedad captain Mikel Oyarzabal is the ultimate big-game player, and he showed it again in the Copa del Rey final at the weekend.
The 28-year-old has enjoyed a remarkable and quite unusual career. In this day and age, it is rare to find a one-club man, let alone one who could easily have played for some of the most illustrious sides in the sport, but instead opted to remain with a team that isn’t always blessed with success.
Yet this is exactly what Oyarzabal has done. Despite not playing for Atletico Madrid, Barcelona or Real Madrid, the Eibar-native has managed to carve out a hugely impressive career for club and country, earning 52 caps for Spain.
Real Sociedad have only won four Copa del Rey titles in their history. Oyarzabal has won two of them. At the weekend, the captain lifted his second club trophy after Erreala upset Atletico Madrid in the final of the Spanish cup.
It was a success chock-full of interesting narratives: Real Sociedad scored the fastest goal in a Copa del Rey final (14 seconds), their matchday squad featured 10 academy graduates and head coach Pellegrino Matarazzo became the first American to win a major trophy with a team from a top-five league.
Oyarzabal thrives on the biggest stage
Perhaps the most interesting storyline, however, was that Oyarzabal yet again scored when it mattered most. The forward converted a penalty in first-half stoppage time to give Erreala a 2-1 lead at half-time.
It was Oyarzabal’s sixth final as a player. Incredibly, he has scored in all of them. He is the ultimate big-game player in the modern era, alongside the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Basque hero netted the winner in his first Copa del Rey final back in 2021, when Real Sociedad beat local rivals Athletic Club. It was a bittersweet victory at the time because it came during the COVID-19 pandemic and was played without fans a year after it was originally supposed to take place. This circumstance made Saturday’s result all the more enjoyable for supporters.
At the international level, Oyarzabal has scored in two Nations League finals, both of which Spain ended up losing. La Roja were also defeated in the 2020 Olympics final, but they did win the final of Euro 2024. Oyarzabal scored in both, including the winner in the latter.
It is an exceptional streak, even for a player who has always been a fairly reliable source of goals for club and country. He has netted 130 times in 430 games for Real Sociedad and 24 times in his 52 Spain caps.
In addition to consistently showing up on the biggest stage, Oyarzabal is also a class act. After beating Atleti on Saturday, he draped a Real Sociedad kit with the name Aitor Zabaleta over the Copa del Rey trophy. Zabaleta was a fan who was stabbed to death by Atleti hooligans in 1998.
Before lifting the trophy, Oyarzabal also made sure to show that this was a triumph achieved by everyone in the squad. He gave his captain’s armband to the injured Igor Zubeldia and hoisted the trophy with the defender.
Oyarzabal is a remarkable player and person. Already a Real Sociedad icon, he is well on his way to achieving legendary status in LaLiga and Spanish football at large.
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