A fortnight that ran the whole map, and an English club in the middle
Nothing in these rows has been comfortable and almost everything has been alive. The last fortnight alone has run from the far south of Spain to the north coast and back, with an English club squeezed in on a European night. By the numbers — La Liga: 8th · 7 played · 3-1-3 · 9-13 · 10 pts · form WDWLW. All data from ScoreCrowd's match records, retrieved 24 September 2026. The line above is La Liga only; the Europa League match described here sits outside it. The twenty-first of August set the tone: away at Real Betis, which means Seville, which is about as far from San Sebastián as the league asks you to go twice in a season, and it finished nil-one. The twenty-sixth of August was worse on paper — one-four away at Real Madrid in the capital — and then the month turned: two-one at home to Espanyol on the twenty-ninth. September has been a road movie. The seventh: away at Elche, on the south-east coast, three-two to the visitors in a match that sounds like it was held together with tape and adrenaline. The thirteenth: back at home, where Atlético Madrid arrived and left with a three-nil win. The seventeenth: the Europa League, at home, one-two against AFC Bournemouth. The twentieth: away at Valencia, at the Estadio de Mestalla, three-two to the visitors again. The miles deserve their own paragraph. San Sebastián sits up on the north coast, and every road in this run points south: Seville, Madrid, Elche and Valencia — four long roads out of the same front door, none of them short. The team has come back with something from two of the four. Elche and Mestalla both ended three-two away — two away wins in the same chaotic shape — and that is the kind of thing that keeps a squad loose and a set of supporters grey. Add the thirteenth's nil-three and a pattern appears in these rows: the defeats come against the biggest names in them, and in the wins nobody keeps a clean sheet. Here is a small detail the archive supplies for free. The two home fixtures in September list two different grounds: the thirteenth is at the Anoeta Stadium, the seventeenth at the Reale Arena. Same front door, two names in the file four days apart — one of those data quirks that makes a data desk sigh. The twentieth of September away at Valencia names its stage properly: the Estadio de Mestalla. And the Bournemouth row is worth a moment on its own, being the only European match in these rows. AFC Bournemouth, in the UEFA Europa League, at the Reale Arena on the seventeenth of September: one-two. The competitions list has three entries — La Liga, the UEFA Europa League and Club Friendlies 3 — and the European evening here is one game long, and it ended with a long road home for somebody. The visitors' road for it began on the south coast of England and ended on the north coast of Spain. Last season's rows are where the pattern comes from. The seventeenth of May: Valencia at home, three-four. The twenty-sixth of April: three-three away at Rayo Vallecano. The ninth of May: two-two at home to Real Betis. The twenty-third of May: one-one away at Espanyol. Four games in the spring full of goals and short on wins, with a two-nil at home to Levante in April and a two-one away at Getafe in January as the calm bits. And the first row of all, the sixteenth of August 2025 away at Valencia, one-one — the start of a habit, because three meetings with Valencia in these rows tell the same story: that one-one in Valencia, a three-four at home in May, and September's three-two at Mestalla. The habit is goals, not comfort. What comes next is not in the data here yet. What is here says this much: no lead is safe and no afternoon dull. The road keeps pointing south. Where it points after that is a question for the file's next update.