There is one opponent this club simply cannot get away from, and it is not the one the fixture list would have anybody guess. Open the match records and Deportivo Alavés are everywhere: six meetings in these rows, more than any other opponent in them, including one that was a friendly played at the Ciudad Deportiva del VCF de Paterna Campo 4 in July 2024, a training-ground afternoon that finished nil-one. Twice the road has led to the Estadio de Mendizorroza in the last year, and the second of those trips, on the fifteenth of September, is the only win in these rows this season.
Read the six and the relationship is there. The Paterna friendly, nil-one, July 2024. The league meeting that December at home, two-two. The fourteenth of May 2025 away, nil-one, the quiet kind of defeat up north. The twentieth of October 2025 at Mendizorroza, nil-nil. The eighth of March 2026 at home, three-two — the first win in the set. And then September's return to Mendizorroza, one-nil to the visitors. It reads like a pendulum — defeat, draw, defeat, draw, then two wins running — around a ground in Vitoria that keeps appearing on the itinerary like a bus route nobody chose.
That September win matters because of what sat either side of it. The eleventh of September: away at Sevilla, down in the far south, nil-one. Four days later: Mendizorroza, up in the Basque Country, one-nil. Five days after that: Real Sociedad at the Estadio de Mestalla, two-three. South tip of the map, north end of the map, home — in nine days. It is a fortnight that bends hard, and the middle game is the only one that paid.
By the numbers — La Liga: 19th · 7 played · 1-1-5 · 4-13 · 4 pts · form LLLWL. All data from ScoreCrowd's match records, retrieved 24 September 2026. The line above is La Liga only; the July 2024 friendly sits outside it.
The first of this season's rows is at home to Real Betis on the twenty-fifth of August: nil-one. Then came FC Barcelona, on the sixth of September at home: nil-five, and that is the heaviest defeat in these rows. Then Seville, nil-one. Then the win at Mendizorroza, one-nil, and a return to Mestalla that ended two-three with the home side scoring twice and still losing. Of the league games in these rows, only one brought this team more than a single goal, and it was the one they lost at home to Real Sociedad.
Now the FC Barcelona mirror, which is the strangest pairing in any ledger in this file. On the twenty-third of May 2026, at home: three-one to Valencia — the last row of last season, and the best of a May that finished the year off in style. On the sixth of September 2026, at home, same opponent: nil-five. Same fixture, same setting, one summer apart, and a world of difference. Nobody in the file can explain that one — it is just two home games at the same ground pointing in opposite directions.
The rest of the run needs less poetry. One-nil away at Getafe in January. One-two away at Villarreal in February. Two-nil away at Sevilla in March, one of the good days. Nil-one away at Elche in April, one of the bad ones. One-nil away at Athletic Club in May, another good one. Four-three away at Real Sociedad in May — that one belongs in the club museum on scoreline alone. One-one at home to Rayo Vallecano, two-two at home to Alavés, one-one at home to Real Sociedad the August before last: the draws pile up quietly in the middle of the file while the defeats shout from the edges.
What is next is not in the data here yet. A stretch like this is not a season anyone is enjoying, but the fixture list does not care about that, and the road keeps rearranging the map at speed. Mendizorroza came around again and paid. That is one road this club knows how to survive. The next one will not be in the file until it lands in the file.