With a year delay, the battle for the European title has now started. Football zone highlights players who you should pay attention to during EURO 2020 or who have a special story. In the ninth episode, attention is paid to Mikel Oyarzabal, who is the regular substitute for Spain this European Championship and found the net in the spectacular 3-5 victory over Croatia. An eventual European title would mark the next success in the fledgling career of the 24-year-old Real Sociedad winger, who is not exactly your average footballer.
By Chris Meijer
Hours and hours of football was played on the Unzaga Plaza. The trees around the village square of Eibar formed the goals, in the background the town hall and the Basque hills looked on. Everyone wanted to be David Silva. At the time – in the 2004/05 season – the midfielder was loaned out by Valencia to SD Eibar and made the village dream of promotion to La Liga, something that seemed a utopia at the time and would become reality not much later. Ultimately, sixteen years later, one of the boys would play alongside their collective idol: Mikel Oyarzabal. “When I first heard that David might be signing with Real Sociedad, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think it was possible. He is a great example for all of us,” Oyarzabal said in conversation with The Times. “When I was six or seven I went to the stadium with my father to watch him play. I told him that when he arrived at our place. He said it made him feel old.”
On Silva’s side, Oyarzabal made his family’s big dream come true in April: to lift a prize as Real Sociedad captain. The club from San Sebastian won the postponed final of the Copa del Rey of the 2019/20 season with 0-1 against arch-rival Athletic Club. Precisely the club where Oyarzabal could have played. Athletic was the first major club to discover him in Eibar’s youth academy. However, his parents kindly thanked him: as a member of a Real Sociedad family, it was not worth leaving his familiar environment behind for Bilbao. How different it was when his favorite club was on the doorstep in 2011. The then fourteen-year-old Oyarzabal did not hesitate for a moment to get started at Real Sociedad, even if it meant that he had to spend a total of one and a half hours in a taxi every day to get to San Sebastian.
“The hardest part was going to the training every day by taxi, because it took a lot of time and was at the expense of my studies. It was difficult to adapt to Real Sociedad and at the same time do well on my exams. In the end I succeeded by organizing well. I made time before going to training, after I got home from school and on the weekends,” Oyarzabal said in an interview with El Diario Vasco. The fact that he made the switch to Real Sociedad did not mean that his school had to be put on the back burner. His parents insisted that he find a way to combine football with school. Their belief was that if Oyarzabal managed to organize all this well, he would grow up quickly.
Oyarzabal lifts the Copa del Rey into the air earlier this year.
That attitude did not change when Oyarzabal made his breakthrough in the first team of Real Sociedad in 2015 under coach David Moyes as an eighteen-year-old. While facing Lionel Messi, Sergio Ramos, Luis Suarez or Cristiano Ronaldo on the weekend, he studied business administration at the University of Deusto in Bilbao during the week. “It was not easy to combine that, because there were days when I came to class tired or down was due to defeat. But I wanted to finish my studies, because it was necessary. It was also a good distraction for football,” said Oyarzabal, who at the time shared an apartment with two childhood friends. “I was very busy, so I didn’t party. She does. But I enjoyed watching them have fun. When they went out, I stayed in our flat to relax. There were no problems. The household chores were divided, but we all enjoyed cooking.”
“When I started college, I wanted to challenge myself by doing everything as fast as my friends. Gradually they helped me with my studies, and in the end it worked. It would have been more difficult without their help. I often didn’t feel like studying, but I know it’s important to have a second option next to football. You never know what could happen,” said Oyarzabal. What may have made his studies more difficult was his rapid development. Less than a year after his debut with Real Sociedad, he was called up to the Spanish national team for the first time. Former national coach Vicente del Bosque made Oyarzabal’s debut for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the friendly against Bosnia and Herzegovina on 29 May 2016. la Roja.
Oyarzabal, in the photo with José Gayá, played for the time being seventeen international matches for Spain, in which he provided five hits.
It took three years before Oyarzabal would be called up again for the ‘great’ Spain. After the European title with Young Spain in 2019, he invariably got a place in the Spanish selection, where he often still has to make do with a role as a substitute. National coach Luis Enrique chose someone else in his position of wandering left winger for the time being: Dani Olmo held this position against Sweden (0-0) and Poland (1-1), Gerard Moreno played on the left side against Slovakia (0-5 victory) and in the game with Croatia in the eighth final (3-5 win after extra time), the choice fell on Pablo Sarabia. Oyarzabal has so far come in as a substitute in every Spain match at the European Championship in the left wing position.
At Real Sociedad, Oyarzabal has grown into the big man in this position – on paper a left winger or left midfielder who regularly appears in the ashes – even after the arrival of Silva. Oyarzabal took over the number 10 jersey in 2018 and eventually the captain’s armband from club icon Xabi Prieto, who ended his career after fifteen years at Real Sociedad. At the same time, the attacker signed a new contract, which runs until mid-2024, with a surrender clause of no less than 75 million euros, which means that Athletic once again has a blue eye at Oyarzabal. The question is whether Oyarzabal – who, despite his modest height of 1.81 meters in shoe size 47, has the biggest feet of all players in LaLiga and has therefore been nicknamed since his childhood big foot bears – will serve that commitment, as he has been strongly associated with, among others, Manchester City for a long time.
It is quite possible that more clubs will report to Oyarzabal’s parents this summer, who represent his interests. “I don’t think anyone can advise me better than my parents, because they want the best for me. For the time being, things are going well, so it’s the best option,” Oyarzabal explained the choice to let his parents represent his interests. Before the game about his future erupts, however, a busy summer awaits. After the European Championship, Oyarzabal will have a holiday of only a few days, as he has also been included in the Spanish squad for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. He never doubted that for a moment: “Everyone would give up their summer to experience what I’m going through now.”
Episode 1: The Man’s Dilemma Who Once Got His Gambling Grandfather £125,000
Episode 2: The heir of the ‘clown in the sweatpants’ who mirrors Van der Sar
Episode 3: ‘Koziolek’ can play Dutchman from the books 1.5 years after car crash at the European Championship
Episode 4: The street kid who reached the Premier League and European Championship from the seventh level
Episode 5: Italy has its own Jurriën-Timber scenario due to Mancini .’s striking decision
Episode 6: the Dutch opponent is amazed: ‘Those are three great players alone’
Episode 7: Teen of 70 million new eye-catcher from Sporting and Portugal
Episode 8: Quarrels, Masturbation Video and Deadpool: The ‘Russian Mario Balotelli’
Episode 9: the Dutch warned about new Peter Crouch: ‘I’m not the smartest’
Episode 10: Bielsa’s Project: From Gray Mouse in the Championship to European Championship Revelation
Episode 11: Macedonian star puts ‘unique highlight’ in Amsterdam above the European Championship
Episode 12: Part-Time Ice Cream Vendor Léo Dubois ‘Lost’ Among French World Stars
Episode 13: Wembley gears up for ‘Bambi’, the 38 million German diamond
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