Just as he did in Spain’s previous meeting with England in the final of Euro 2024, Real Sociedad’s Mikel Oyarzabal came off the bench to score the winner – this time, ensuring his country got their 2026/27 Nations League campaign up and running with a 3-2 victory at Wembley.
That was his 31st international goal – only five players have ever scored more for Spain; his goals-per-game average is better than legends like Raúl and Fernando Torres – yet still, Oyarzabal goes somewhat underappreciated.
Some players just thrive when playing for their country, shining brighter than they do at club level. Oyarzabal is one – but the dismissal of his club career is wildly unfair.
To dismiss Oyarzabal’s club career – the fact he’s never moved to a ‘bigger’ club; that he’s stayed a one-club man – is to dismiss a fundamental part of his identity. Oyarzabal is Basque, and he’s remained loyal to his roots.
Born in Eibar, less than hour’s drive from Donostia / San Sebastián, the town Real Sociedad call home, Oyarzabal has spent his entire career in the Basque Country, starting out in the youth system of Eibar then joining Real Sociedad aged 14 and ultimately going on to captain them. In his first year as a senior Spain international, he played and scored for the Basque national team against Tunisia.
Oyarzabal’s commitment to his heritage is not unusual: the latest Spain squad includes six players of Basque origin; three of them – Oyarzabal, and Athletic Club duo Unai Simón and Nico Williams, Spain’s other goalscorer in the Euro 2024 final – have never played for clubs outside the Basque Country.
And perhaps therein lies a key driver of Oyarzabal’s consistency. Free from the pressure of having to prove himself at a new club or in a new league, he’s been able to get on with what he does best: score goals – of all kinds.
Oyarzabal passed the 100-goal mark for Real Sociedad two seasons ago. Second on the club’s all-time scorers list, the 29-year-old is now up to 133 goals in the colours of Erreala – with only one man left to catch: another one-club legend, Jesús María Satrústegui – who, 45 years before Oyarzabal did likewise, scored for Spain against England at Wembley, in La Roja’s first-ever win at the iconic stadium.
And for all his consistency in club football – of his 11 seasons in the Real Sociedad first team, he’s scored 13 or more goals in eight of them – Oyarzabal has proved to be something of an international specialist in recent months.
He’s yet to add to his Real Sociedad tally this term; in fact, he’s gone 11 club appearances without a goal, stretching back to May. But since then, he’s struck seven times in 11 outings for Spain – with five of those goals coming en route to World Cup glory this summer, including the opener in the semi-final triumph over France.
In a mark of clinical nature, Oyarzabal’s six goals across the World Cup and Spain’s opening two Nations League games – have come from 4.63 Expected Goals (xG). His last 10 competitive international goals – dating back to last October – have come from 9.87 xG. Strip out the three penalties he’s scored (a penalty is typically worth around 0.79 xG) and he’s found the net seven times from roughly 7.5 xG in 13 competitive Spain matches over the last 12 months – as well as notching a further three goals in friendlies.
Oyarzabal is enjoying a purple patch in the red of Spain: he’s accumulated just under 42% of his international goals since this time last year. He’s netted a career-best nine times in each of the last two calendar years – and Spain still have two games to go in 2026…
Spain boss Luis de la Fuente said of Oyarzabal after his brace in La Roja’s 4-0 thrashing of Saudi Arabia, their first win of the World Cup: “He’s a great among greats. Finally we’re starting to recognise him in Spain, my goodness.”
De la Fuente also made a point of highlighting Oyarzabal’s superb footballing brain, adding: “Few players understand football like him. And at goalscoring, he’s extraordinary.”
A total of 24 international goals in just under three years represents quite the return for a player who has only really been converted from a winger into a centre forward relatively recently. And when you consider Oyarzabal is not a pure No. 9 – in fairness, Spain have historically been at their best when deploying someone more in the false nine role – his goalscoring figures become all the more impressive.
He posted a career-best haul of 15 LaLiga goals last season, and he has tended to score in clusters in recent years – so the drought is unlikely to last, although it’s understandable it’s happened in the first place when you consider he played the majority of minutes in Spain’s eight-match run to lifting their second World Cup.
Besides, when it comes to the crunch, Oyarzabal still produces the goods in some shape or form: a few weeks before that decisive goal at Wembley, he provided both assists as Real Sociedad recovered from successive defeats at the start of the LaLiga campaign to register their first win against Espanyol.
He’s created 10 chances – of his club teammates, only Carlos Soler (11) has fashioned more – and that’s in a side who, so far, rank towards the lower end of LaLiga for xG (8.6 at an average of 1.22 per game). You can take the winger out of the role, but you can’t take the role out of the winger, it seems.
But whatever box one wishes to put Oyarzabal in (usually the opposition’s), he’s demonstrably a player for the big moments and more – and a model professional who deserves to have more respect put on his name.
(Images from IMAGO)
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