The spirit of the Royal champion

In the two seasons in which Real won the League (1981 and 1982) there were footballers who did not even make their debut. They did not step on the grass in an official match. At a time when the 'eleven' title was recited on a run and in a football that did not conjugate the verb rotate, the substitute was with all the letters, with capital letters. And yet, no matter how resigned he was to play that role, no one who analyzed that historic Real will deny that the footballers who were not
Arconada
,
Celaieta
,
Górriz
,
Kortabarria,


Olaizola
,
Diego
,
Alonso
,
Zamora
,
Idygoras
,
Sarústegi
or
Lopez


Ufarte
they played an essential role in the achievement of the titles.

The 'eleven' guy from the first championship played 88% of the minutes. In the second League,
Ormaetxea
rotated a little more, the headlines took 86% of the minutes of the 34 games. Despite the fact that the distribution of roles was so clear, all the members of the squad came every Monday to train as if there were no tomorrow. X-rayed with the wind in favor that provides knowing that we are talking about the authentic golden age of the Royal, of its glorious time, almost no direct protagonist of it would deny that part of what made the champion team so good was the extreme hardness of the trainings. How difficult the substitutes made it every day. The requirement of daily work.

Imanol
doses more efforts. It is another football. Almost 40 years have passed. The eleven who play the most in this Real account for 73% of the minutes for 23% the rest. But there is something of the spirit of that Royal champion in the current one. And it is not difficult to see incarnate
Ormaetxea
in
Sheriff
, even in his lean figure. The height of the bar on which the daily demand has been placed, the work culture, is similar. And now, as then, the coach has achieved that although the substitutes also want to be starters, they assume that their daily work in training improves the team and is as important as the class of
Merino
, an assistance of
Silva
, the ancestry of
Oyarzabal
or the goals of
For your.

An essential foundation

If the Real wins tomorrow,
Imanol
will reach his 45th victory in 90 games. 50%. Almost everything has already been said regarding the tremendous victory average of the txuri urdin squad under the Orio coach. None of the coaches who directed the Real the most in their history managed to win half of their matches. But there is a section of the statistics of the Gipuzkoan at the head of the txuri urdin team just as relevant, or more, that stands out less. La Real has only lost with Sheriff 25 of the 89 games they have played (28%), which is close to 24% of
Ormaetxea
, although the merit of the champion coach is multiplied exponentially by achieving it in 324 games. Since the triumph is rewarded with three points, the tie has lost the value it had in the 80s. It is not so decisive how many games a team maintains without losing as how many it is capable of winning. But losing little will always be a starting point towards success since a team that feels little vulnerable will always have the option of winning games. The Real runner-up in 1980 was 32 matches in a row without losing and that of 2003, 19. The
Imanol
they have only lost three of their last 16 games and 11 of their last 38. A solidity that, without a doubt, is the essential foundation for the greatest aspirations.