At least he ate well. Luis Enrique returned to San Sebastián, the most beautiful place in Spain, land of Patxarán, pil-pil and pintxos, tapas nailed to bread with lethal-looking cocktail sticks, of T-bones the size of T-Rexes and more Michelin stars than anywhere in Europe, and left the way he did last time and the time before that; the way that FC Barcelona have left every time they’ve been since 2007. For almost a decade now, they’ve departed defeated. Emotionally, at least. Actually too, most of the time. Six months back Luis Enrique said that he’d go there to eat a chuletón, a great big steak, but not to watch football. After all, like Pep Guardiola, Tito Vilanova and Tata Martino before, he’d had a gut full of that.

Six times Barcelona had been to face Real Sociedad in the league (seven including a Copa del Rey draw) and they had lost five and not won one. On Sunday night Barcelona’s team included just one player who was there when they last went and won – Leo Messi was 19 that day – and the run extended to eight. Messi, 29 now, scored but six minutes before that so had Willian José and a 1-1 draw left his side six points behind Real Madrid six days before the clásico. There’s something about this place, alright: Real Sociedad have been to the second division since but still it goes on. “A miracle,” Luis Enrique called it.

Barcelona scrape draw to leave Gerard Piqué despondent before El Clasíco Read more

In his first season, the team lost 1-0 here; Messi was on the bench and Luis Enrique looked like he was on his way. The sporting director, Andoni Zubizarreta, was sacked, his assistant Carles Puyol walked and elections were called; the manager admitted that his position had “weakened” and he seemed unlikely to last much longer. It was the end, or so it seemed; it turned out to be the beginning. In his second season, Luis Enrique’s team lost 1-0 again, the week after defeat in the clásico: suddenly the headlines claimed “there is a league!” and there was too. In the end, it was Barcelona’s but, as Gerard Piqué put it, they had to win it twice. And now in this, his third season, Barcelona drew.

That, at least, was an improvement, a straw to clutch at. It could have been worse, only afterwards the Barcelona coach insisted: “Worse, impossible.” In most of those other games, there was some sort of excuse, even if a weak one – players left out, bigger games up next or just gone, not all that much in play, a touch of bad luck perhaps. Not this time; this time, Sunday morning’s headlines had called it a “final” a game they had to “win yes, or yes”, only for it to turn out to be a game they were lucky not to lose. Luis Enrique didn’t call it a “miracle” because he was at a loss to explain how Barcelona hadn’t won again; he called it a miracle because, this time, he was at a loss to explain how they hadn’t lost again.

“To talk about a point gained is to talk about a miracle,” he said. “The difference between the teams was so big that the draw is almost a miracle. We took a point from a game that was practically impossible to get a point from. Change the shirts and you wouldn’t think that the other team was Barcelona. They were infinitely better than us. We have never been so inferior to an opponent as we were tonight.” Stopped pitch-side, Piqué was asked if the result was about the best thing Barcelona could take from the game; if, ultimately, they had to be satisfied with the draw. “At Barcelona, it is very rare that you can say that, but yes,” he replied.

Barcelona were not beaten, but they were battered. Everyone agreed that this was a “bath”, Eddie Murphy farting in the tub. Real Sociedad’s first chance came after 88 seconds; Barcelona didn’t have a shot for 38 and a half more minutes. By then, la Real had taken eight of them. The opportunities were racking up. It was 5-0 in corners after 23 minutes, 8-0 by half time. Barcelona could not find a way out; blocked into the corner, unable to escape, barely able to breathe, it was all they could do to hang on. It didn’t let up, either. Luis Suárez, Messi and Neymar all finished the game with two shots; Esteban Granero finished it with one more than that. And he had only come on in the 85th minute.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Luis Enrique during the game. Photograph: Vincent West/Reuters

The ball was flying at Marc-André ter Stegen from all over the place; footballers in blue and white were flying too, closing Barcelona down, player by player, then racing beyond them. Taking the ball from them and the game to them. They won possession more times in Barcelona’s half than in their own. It was a stampede; fast, asphyxiating, precision to go with the pace. Eight different players had opportunities and by the end of the game, la Real had won every stat, except – pedants – the only stat that really counts. Possession 52-48%, shots 17-10, shots on target 8-2. They attempted more passes and completed a higher proportion of them.

Footballing spreadsheet wizard Mr Chip noted that this was the first time that a team had taken a point from Barcelona and taken possession from them too since, falling apart and having long given up, Madrid took the pasillo out of them back in May 2008. It should have been more than one. “Before the game, we would have taken a point, but right now it doesn’t taste like much,” Carlos Vela said afterwards. His side had scored one, had another wrongly ruled out for offside, and he had hit the bar and hit the post. He was still grinning, though. So was David Zurutuza. “That was a goal and you know it,” he tweeted.

Oh, they knew. “It will be hard to win the league like this,” Piqué said. He talked about a lack of attitude – something which didn’t much please Luis Enrique, who suggested that during pitch-side interviews players lack lucidity when perhaps what they really lack is someone who has had the chance to tell them what to say, to ensure they’re on-message. Barcelona just weren’t out there in the first half, he said. Andrés Iniesta, irreplaceable, is still not fit, Aleix Vidal was on his honeymoon having got married on Friday – yes, really – and Vela admitted that la Real took advantage of the fact that “three of their players work less”.

But it’s not attitude, at least not only; it is ideas too. Play. This was not a one-off; there were recurring themes here. Pressure is starting to pay for opponents. The team so often defined by its midfield didn’t have one for much of the game. Sergio Busquets, watching his passing options disappear into the distance, is managing to look bad and the control is gone. Barcelona have dropped 12 points this season, and they might have dropped more. In Seville, in Valencia. Here, above all.

And that’s the other thing, too often forgotten when it comes to analysing Madrid and Barcelona: their opponents. “La Real wouldn’t let us into the game, they pressed wonderfully well, created numerical superiority on the wing and inside, and created chance after chance,” Luis Enrique said. Their coach, Eusebio, was an indirect victim of this fixture two seasons ago: at the time, he was the Barcelona B team manager; Luis Enrique survived Zubizarreta’s departure but he, ultimately, did not. Many were unimpressed with him, but he admitted that he could see “no reason” why they got rid of him. “We played well; we tried to pressure the opponents and take the ball off them; maybe we deserved a little more,” he said.

They certainly did, everyone agreed. Eusebio’s team were superb. Were? Are. If this was no one-off for Barcelona, it was no one-off for la Real either. This was different from those other times – one match, one moment, amidst relative mediocrity. Their league positions during that run reads: 15th, 12th, fourth, seventh, 12th, ninth. Only in that superb 2012-13 season when they claimed a Champions League place, were they consistently impressive performers. Facing Barcelona was a chance to show what they could do. Could, but usually didn’t. “We’re aware of our potential,” Willian José said. When David Moyes took over, the club believed that they needed a tough manager to get something out of underperforming players. It didn’t work.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lionel Messi struggles to make inroads for Barça. Photograph: Javier Etxezarreta/EPA

It is working now. “The team will play the way that I feel as a coach, the way that I felt as a player,” Eusebio said when he took over. “My idea is a game based on control, good attack, defensive balance and intensity.” He played under Johan Cruyff and describes himself as ‘Cruyffist’ and he has connected with his squad. “It’s lovely for the players to enjoy it on the pitch; that helps them to show their best,” he says. He wants his team to pressure high, to attack, to have the ball. Last year they beat Barcelona as well but it was too soon to replicate that often; this year, he admitted, it is “different.” The idea is clearer, more assimilated; on Sunday night they did all those things he wants them to do. But it was not just this game. “He believes in his way of playing and he has convinced us that this is the right way,” Xabi Prieto says.

On the eve of this match, El Diario Vasco brought together Eusebio and John Toshack – or a waxwork model of John Toshack, anyway. “He’s doing a great job,” the Welshman said. Over in Barcelona, Luis Enrique was impressed too, describing la Real as a side with a “good structure,” one that would “pressure 100%”.

On Sunday night, Cadena Ser radio station asked if la Real were playing the best football in Spain. The answer may well be yes. In AS on Monday morning, they were described as the best team in the country, “pound for pound”. El País said that it was they, not the visitors, who were Barcelona on Sunday night. There’s something of that 2013 team, not least with Prieto playing a role inside not outside. Antoine Griezmann has gone but Asier Illarramendi is back – and conformable now, settled away from Madrid – and Vela is smiling again; once on his way out of the club and out of the country too, he has been recovered for the cause. Yuri Berchiche is flying. Alongside Illaramendi, David Zurutuza, who didn’t get on with Moyes and who missed more than 40 games over the last two seasons through injury, is fit and in his best form. Up front, they have finally signed a striker who is succeeding. William José got the goal on Sunday night.

In the end, all it earned them was a draw that ended a four-game winning run, and left them in fifth, a single point behind Atlético. Had they won – and they should have done – they would have been just one point behind Barcelona. They have collected 16 of the last 21 points, having played Atlético and Barcelona in that period; this is no fluke. “If we play like we did tonight, we’re going to win a lot more games,” Vela said. Recently, they have been: this was their best performance, but not an isolated one. A performance that sent Barcelona home winless again. San Sebastián is not the kind of place that Luis Enrique would go to watch a game, but pay him no heed. You should. The food is good there. The football is too.

Talking points

• “We went to the Bernabéu, a group of four mates and we stood up to them,” Abelardo Fernández said. “Last week I was ashamed and responsible; this week I am going to throw the odd flower at myself.” Well, OK, then. He was right, after all. Sporting had stood up to them, even after going two down inside 20 minutes, both scored by the league’s new top scorer, Ronaldo. Sporting got one back and might even have got the point but when the chance came they didn’t take it. Perhaps the pressure got too much. Duje Cop stood in front of the penalty spot at the north end of the Santiago Bernabéu, the rain pouring around him, barely able to see the goal 12 yards away, and reached for his neck. There he was, checking his pulse. “Yep, fast.” Too fast. He stepped up and hit the shot over the bar. The opportunity had gone for Sporting Gijón. Real Madrid didn’t play well but they did win 2-1. Sporting are still in the relegation zone.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo rises for a header against Sporting. Photograph: Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images

• Iago Aspas. Yeah, yeah, that corner. Or this goal, this assist, this 40-yard chip off the bar. This weekend, in short. This season, in fact. With his goal at Wembley and his goals in Spain – a season in which only Ronaldo, Messi, Suárez and Willian José have scored more.

• So, Atlético went Atlético again. We’ve been here before. Jan Oblak, who has saved 50% of the penalties he has faced (just not in shootouts), saved another one in Pamplona, and Diego Godín, Kévin Gameiro and Yannick Carrasco scored to take a 3-0 win at El Sadar – the stadium that the new Osasuna manager Joaquín Caparrós said is “the consecrated bread, the milk”.

• Javier Ontiveros is 19. And in the 92nd minute he got the ball, cut inside and belted an absolutely astonishing goal from 25 yards into the net to score the goal of the weekend and complete the game of the weekend too – a 4-3 win for Málaga that Juande Ramos said was just like a Russian mountain. Which is Spanish for roller-coaster, in case you’re wondering. Depor felt very hard done by: for the last half an hour they had been very impressive. Carlos Kameni Carlos Kameni’d, by the way. Brilliant at the Camp Nou, he was to blame for two goals at the Rosaleda the very next week.

• Alavés did it again: unfortunate to lose 2-1 at Sevilla, a draw at the Calderón, a win at the Calderón and now a 2-0 victory at the Madrigal, where Villarreal had the best hadn’t been beaten and where they had the best home record in the league.

• In the very last minute … four words that have been used a lot when talking about Sevilla this season. This time, in the very last minute Sergio Rico saved them against Valencia. “The players found strength where there was none,” Jorge Sampaoli said.

Results: Eibar 3-1 Betis, Málaga 4–3 Deportivo, Real Madrid 2–1 Sporting, Espanyol 3–0 Leganés, Sevilla 2–1 Valencia, Villarreal 0–2 Alavés, Osasuna 0–3 Atlético, Celta 3–1 Granada, Real Sociedad 1–1 Barcelona. Monday night: Las Palmas-Athletic