Real Sociedad’s lack of goals this season is beginning to be an important burden to fulfill your most ambitious dreams. The European objective does not seem to be in danger due to this circumstance, thanks to the evident step forward that the San Sebastian team has taken in the defensive section this season. But it is beginning to be quite evident that the problem he has been having all season with the goal is weighing him down excessively, to the point that it has made him almost lose his Champions League dream for next season.
To understand the dimension of the problem with Real Sociedad’s goal, it is not necessary to go far back in time. It is enough to look at the last two games that the txuri-urdin team has played at home. Two games, everything must be said, fundamental in that dream, which is not a goal, to fight to finish among the top four in the table, every time he faced direct rivals in the European fight: Real Betis and Barcelona. La Real has taken only one point out of the six possible in these two stakes, and that goes without saying that it penalizes him a lot in the face of the jump he intended to make in the classification.
The problem is that he made two performances worthy of having taken the six points. But without a goal there is no paradisethey say, right? Well, Imanol Alguacil’s team begins to verify it. Both against Betis and Barcelona he collected occasions of all colors and was not able to score a single goal. The result? 0-0 against Betis, because they hardly conceded anything to the new Cup champion. And 0-1 against Barcelona, because he had a rude defensive mismatch, an oversight when clearing a ball, and gave Xavi’s team a chance. He did not have any more problems in defense, but it was enough to lose, because up front his forwards showed that they have wet gunpowder.
In the San Sebastian club they quantify what they have failed to add in these two games due to their lack of effectiveness in attack in three points. They expect that Betis should have been beaten, so they would add two more points to their locker, and against Barcelona they should not have been lost, with which they would at least add one more point. In total, three more points, with which Real would now have 58 points, they would be fifth ahead of Betis and only three points behind fourth. classified. The story changes a lot towards the end of the league. Because currently, and that is the harsh reality, because of not scoring goals, the royalists are sixth with 55 points and six of the Champions positions. Nothing to see. Europe seems almost assured thanks to Betis’s victory in the Cup. Because there are seven points to the eighth classified with fifteen to play, so at least they would play the Conference League. But for a few days the team believed that it could aspire to more. The goal, or the lack of a goal, has made it clear to him what his reality is.
It is impossible to detract from the season that Real Sociedad is doing, which is looking for its third consecutive European qualification; but it is necessary to put everything in context, and for the next campaign it is quite evident in which line of the field he has to invest to make a leap in quality that he could well have given in this campaign. The front must be reinforced. Because La Real is the team in the major leagues that scores the fewest goals at home among the teams in Champions positions. And although it is also by far the team that gets the most out of its goals at home, it is clear that seeing so little of the rival goal is harming it.
And in the global calculation, the realistic team is the fifth least scoring first-team (32 goals), only ahead of Getafe, Cádiz, Mallorca and Alavés. Fortunately, he has only received 31 goals, with 20 clean sheets in total between all competitions. And it is that his forwards are not completing the best of their seasons. Removing Oyarzabal, now seriously injured and who had scored nine goals; the others are far from his best numbers. Isak only has five goals, Portu has yet to score in the league, and Carlos Fernández has been injured all season. They are joined by the signing of Sorloth, who has barely scored two goals in the league competition, something that greatly tarnishes his great work and growth in recent weeks.