Mikel Oyarzabal and the Virtue of Patience at Real Sociedad

In this digital age where instant gratification reigns supreme, football fans do not know how to be patient. We want historic teams to be assembled in a year or two, we lose interest in young players whose growth does not follow a linear trajectory, or we give up on great players who had one or two bad years.

While club management has gotten smarter in the last few decades (for example, in player recruitment), the pressure to perform is perhaps higher than ever. This means that club management must face an environment with little patience for healthy processes that can lead to medium and long-term success. Thus clubs become organisations that must prioritise the short term.

This pressure is reflected in managers and players. In the Premier League, the time of the average managerial tenure has been cut in half over the past decade. Similar things are happening in Spain and the other big five leagues. 

I vividly remember the years between 2016 and 2018, Karim Benzema’s darkest hours at Real Madrid. In the 2017-18 season, he only scored five goals in La Liga, a far cry from the striker who would later become the 2022 Ballon d’Or.

Many fans and journalists then saw the situation as unsustainable, yet his coach, Zinedine Zidane, had zero hesitation in defending Benzema. “If you like football, you must like Benzema” , he declared . 

I recalled these statements from Zidane when I heard Imanol Alguacil defending Mikel Oyarzabal last month: “If anyone has doubts about Mikel, they understand nothing, nothing, nothing, about football. Mikel has proved himself, he is one of the best in Real Sociedad’s history. He’s different, he’s special”. 

In March 2022, Oyarzabal ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament of his left knee