While David Silva's 'secret' signing for @RealSociedadEN pissed off Lazio no end, we're happy for one of the most likeable teams around to get some more time in the spotlight. Under the management of local Imanol Alguacil, Sociedad have quietly gone about doing the region proud.

Bilbao see themselves as underdogs in Spain, but that's all relative in Euskadi. Athletic's pinching from Sociedad's cantera forced the team to buy non-Basque players for the first time. In '89, they signed John Aldridge from Liverpool.

Sociedad are no strangers to a coup.

Sociedad — with Basque manager Ormaetxea at the helm — won Spain’s league title in 1981, the first time in their history. Revolving around the Holy double-pivot of Jesús María Satrústegui and Jesús María Zamora, they’d retain La Liga a year later too. The establishment was shook.

That's JMS on the left, JMZ on the right. Same name, same haircut, both brilliant. What a combination.

It was Zamora who'd scored the 'winning' goal for Sociedad that first season, his dramatic 89th minute equaliser against Gijón grabbing them the league title. Safe to say he never paid for another zurito in San Sebastián ever again.

Many Sociedad fans travelled to Gijón for a game in which they looked well beaten. "Before scoring, I was thinking about what we were going to do if we didn't win the title," said Zamora later. "All those fans here... How were we ever going to return to San Sebastián?"

Real Madrid were already celebrating their title win before Zamora's goal. Having won 3–1 away against Real Valladolid, someone overheard the Sociedad goal on the radio.

You'd be fucking gutted, wouldn't you?

Then, inevitably, the wheels came off. Satrústegui exploded his knee v Zaragoza in November ‘82 and Alberto Ormaetxea’s team failed to regain their form. In the next three seasons, they finished seventh, sixth, and seventh.

Equilibrium, sadly, restored.

Athletic began chipping away at the foundations of Sociedad again, stealing away its best players from the academy. They finished seventh in ‘86 and a dispiriting tenth in ‘87.

There’s a Basque proverb: Dezagun gutxi, dezagun beti.

"Let us have little, but let us have enough."

Success has often felt out of reach, but sustainability and pride (and, yeah, the odd nibble of glory) have always felt like its own win for Sociedad.

In ‘88, bolstered by a barnstorming run from José Mari Bakero (who wasn’t Basque, but was from Navarro, which is "Basque-enough", I guess), they came second in the league. Barcelona would sign Bakero that summer, but Sociedad had Aldo on the way.

While he’d score plenty of goals in San Sebastian, Aldridge and the fans struggled to fully adapt to this new arrangement.

Sociedad were a team consigned to mid-table, save for a cheeky third place in '98 and a second in '03 and a brief dip into Segunda in the mid-00s.

But, here’s another Basque proverb: Aurrera begiratzen ez duena, atzean dago. “Those who don’t look forward, stay behind.”

Alguacil built a team around Martin Ødegaard last term only for him to return to Real Madrid. But with David Silva, Sociedad go again.

A fitting final proverb, then: Azeri zaharrak ile zaharra uzten du, aztura zaharrik ez. "The old fox sheds its hair, but not its old habits."

Get Basque to basics with Txoko pod, but please don't correct us on anything we've got wrong. That's the deal. https://twitter.com/TheTxokoPod/status/1295697916326281217