This one’s for you, Take Kubo. At the end of the Basque derby, as the rest of the Reale Arena emptied into the streets of Donosti for the start of a long Saturday night, the Real Sociedad forward made his way from the Aitor Zabaleta End, where they were still singing his name, to the touchline, where a group of Japanese fans carrying an Ikurrina were waiting for him. “First honour, then glory,” he said when he got there, invited to stand in front of a TV camera and share his thoughts as the star of the show. “Well, the more front pages I get the better, no?” he shrugged. “But maybe the cover will be Robin. Or ‘Oyar’.”
They were candidates, for sure. The man in the carbon mask, Robin Le Normand, had scored the opener in a 3-0 win over Athletic Club before departing because he couldn’t breathe any more. Supplied by a glorious Martín Zubimendi pass, Mikel Oyarzabal had stepped round the goalkeeper to roll in the third, standing arms wide before the second biggest crowd this stadium has ever seen, the largest since the last time the derby came round. And then there was Jon Azanza, who you’ve never heard of but probably have seen by now, the image of this unique rivalry: an engineer and an Athletic fan in red and white smiling in the middle of a bouncing blue sea of supporters.
The cover of Diario Vasco did go for Oyarzabal in front of the faithful – “Unstoppable”, the headline said – another man doing what Azanza had done, minus the smile, got the Basque daily Deia, and then there was the front page that went for a pile of players with a single word: “Ecstasy”. But Kubo looked out from the morning’s papers too, if look is the right word, and how could he not? What he had done was a gift, after all: a neat, clever finish, dropping the shoulder and flicking the eyes to disarm Unai Simón and score the second, followed by that.
Heading towards the edge of the pitch, for a moment it appeared that he had hurt himself, pulling up and putting his hand to his hamstring, but then he thrust out his his bum, like Ned Flanders in a tight ski suit, and twerked. So there he was on the Gipuzkoan edition of El Mundo Deportivo – “a Champions League Twerk” – and the front of Marca, albeit his bum was squeezed into a small box alongside a bigger Jude Bellingham, who had lead Real Madrid to victory over the league leaders Girona that afternoon. “Our mood tonight,” Real Sociedad declared.
If inspiration could have come from Kansas City Current’s Lo’eau LaBonta, Kubo said it was “nothing special” and all the fault of Aritz Elustondo, who had wondered if he had the “balls for it”, even though this was the second time he has done a celebration because Elustondo dared him, ample demonstration that if there’s one thing Kubo doesn’t lack it’s confidence. Put him in front of a microphone and you hear it every time: funny and free of inhibitions, genuine and startlingly honest, this is the man who, asked about an assist after one game, shot back: “Are they giving it to me this week? They took the last one off me.” And the man who responded to his fourth consecutive man-of-the-match award by admitting: “I reckon it’s the first time I’ve deserved it.” Put him on the pitch and you see it pretty much every time too.
You do these days, anyway. “Take Kubo is a great player; terrible hair, but a great player,” Javier Aguirre, the Mallorca manager, once said, and back then he wasn’t half the player he is now. Now he might even be the best in La Liga, after Bellingham, and is almost certainly the most fun to watch.
Kubo was always going to be good, or so they said, which might not always have been good for him. Spotted at a Barcelona football school in Japan aged eight, he moved to La Masia when he was 10 but was among the kids forced to leave after Barcelona were found guilty of breaking regulations on bringing under-18s into the academy from abroad. Having played at FC Tokyo, where he became the youngest player ever to score in the J.League aged just 15, three years later he returned to Spain – but this time to Real Madrid. Still only 18, legally allowed to move now, he didn’t play a competitive game for the first team. Instead, over three seasons, he played for Mallorca, Villarreal, Getafe and Mallorca again.
The year at Mallorca ended in relegation. At Villarreal, he played just 299 minutes across 13 league games, momentarily raising a debate back in Madrid about his lack of opportunities under Unai Emery. But it was hard to argue too much, which didn’t stop them because it never does. Getafe, who he joined halfway through that season, was never likely to be the right place for him. And that summer, he was back at Mallorca. By the time he was signed by Real Sociedad for €6m in the summer of 2023, Madrid had been happy to sell – they have the right to match any future bid and get 50% of any profits on a sale, but there isn’t a unilateral buy-back clause – and some wondered if he might never be that good, after all. If this didn’t work out, then what?
Which seems like a silly question to ask of a player who was still only 21, but he was one of those asking. “I took this as my last train, my last chance to make the leap everyone expected of me,” he admitted. Taking it that way probably helped; his new home definitely did and not just because it’s probably the most beautiful city around. “He’s a player who needs continuity and freedom,” Aguirre said.
He was a player who needed Real Sociedad, the club you wish yours could be. There is tranquility in Donosti, he says, and good people in the dressing room. He plays football on the beach with teammates and his little brother Eiji, 16, plays in the youth team. Above all, he plays his way, which is not just about freedom and technique but relentlessness and organisation too. If there were doubts about him, the sporting director Roberto Olabe’s conviction that he would fit perfectly has been borne out.
“This is a club that suits my style: lots of skilful players, lots of talent, people who play the ball. That’s very attractive for a player of my profile,” Kubo said after this same fixture last season. “It’s a team that presses to get possession back, plays high up the pitch and wants lots of the ball, and in that style I stand out a lot. I want to say thank you to la Real because in truth I was not at the high level that people expect of me. My life is football: I left Japan very little, I never go out, I dedicate my life to football and this is one of the happiest moments of my career.”
That night he scored and performed brilliantly; all season he was a revelation, vital to the side that qualified for the Champions League 10 years later, providing four assists, although he thought it was more, and scoring nine times – more than in his three European seasons put together. “It’s what I wanted but I didn’t expect it to be this good; at la Real it seems every day is a fiesta,” he told Cadena Ser this summer.
Inevitably, talk of a return to Real Madrid began but he was not having it. “I’m txuri-urdin, blue and white,” Kubo insisted. “I want to shine.”
Oh, he has done that. It’s not just the celebration. He might not even have been la Real’s best player on Saturday night – Brais Méndez, Le Normand, Mikel Merino and Martín Zubimendi all impressed – this was not not even his best performance of the season and 3-0 makes it sound like more of a destruction than it was. But that says something about just how high he has set the bar – his opening 60 minutes at the Bernabéu were genuinely astonishing – and how high all of them have. This was Kubo’s fifth goal in six games – only Bellingham has more – and their third win in a week, momentarily taking them back into a Champions League place. Where, incidentally, they dominated Inter for 80 minutes.
Barcelona 1-0 Sevilla, Real Sociedad 3-0 Athletic Bilbao, Girona 0-3 real Madrid, Rayo Vallecano 2-2 Real Mallorca, Getafe 0-0 Villarreal, Real Betis 3-0 Valencia, Atlético Madrid 3-2 Cádiz, Alavés0-2 Osasuna, Almería 3-3 Granada
That was special, they all said, but there’s nothing quite like the derby, as the footage of Azanza once more showed and the Athletic coach Ernesto Valverde insisted pre-game, describing it as the best in the world. Imanol Alguacil could not agree more. As Kubo headed off up the tunnel, the coach was waiting for him as he had all his players, hitting and hugging them so hard it was a minor miracle he didn’t have more injuries on his hands. “I might have to take two pills instead of one to sleep tonight,” he said. “We have to get up and prepare for Tuesday but our fans will enjoy tonight, my kids included. Maybe I’ll cross paths with them as they come home and I head off for the training ground in the morning. They can bring me breakfast back, at least.”
And maybe the morning’s papers too, with Takefusa Kubo taking up the front page.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Real Madrid | 8 | 10 | 21 |
| 2 | Barcelona | 8 | 11 | 20 |
| 3 | Girona | 8 | 7 | 19 |
| 4 | Atletico Madrid | 7 | 11 | 16 |
| 5 | Real Sociedad | 8 | 6 | 15 |
| 6 | Athletic Bilbao | 8 | 4 | 14 |
| 7 | Real Betis | 8 | -2 | 12 |
| 8 | Rayo Vallecano | 8 | -2 | 12 |
| 9 | Osasuna | 8 | -1 | 10 |
| 10 | Valencia | 8 | -1 | 10 |
| 11 | Getafe | 8 | -3 | 9 |
| 12 | Cadiz | 8 | -3 | 9 |
| 13 | Villarreal | 8 | -3 | 8 |
| 14 | Sevilla | 7 | 1 | 7 |
| 15 | Mallorca | 8 | -3 | 7 |
| 16 | Alaves | 8 | -6 | 7 |
| 17 | Celta Vigo | 7 | -4 | 5 |
| 18 | Las Palmas | 7 | -4 | 5 |
| 19 | Granada | 8 | -8 | 5 |
| 20 | Almeria | 8 | -10 | 3 |
