It’s exactly 100km from Anoeta to San Mamés as the car drives, passing Ipurúa halfway, sitting pretty in the Ego valley. Visible from the road, there was no one at the stadium this time – Eibar were down to Madrid to play Atlético – but there were thousands at each end of the AP8, striped shirts everywhere, flags hanging from bars where old photos hang from walls and they were making a lot of noise, packing Pozas Street in Bilbao, and spilling into the sunshine on Zorroaga Way, San Sebastián. Maybe even more noise than ever before. There’s something special about the Basque Country – 1.4% of Spain’s territory, 4.9% of its population, 20% of its first-division teams – and this Saturday even more so, an expression of its footballing identity, enhanced and offered up for all to see.

Between them, Real Sociedad and Athletic Club have 35 players in their squad who played for them pre-first team level and for four years at the start of the eighties they kept the league title in Euskadi. Those days are long gone – although they were second and third in 1997-98 and La Real really could have won it in 2003 – but on Saturday morning Marca lead with the headline: “The league looks north.” The first day back after the international break, when it feels like the season is properly under way at last, saw Barcelona travel to play La Real, while Madrid went to Athletic that same evening, 100km apart.

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One hundred kilometres and, by the end of the day, two points. Barcelona and Madrid started the day as the only teams with perfect records in the league; by the end, only Barça were left. They came from behind to beat la Real 2-1; Madrid came from behind too, but could only draw with Athletic. The league got its first shift. And yet, if that sounds like it is all about them – and for many it was – there was something deeper, something more lasting about what happened in Euskadi. Just ask the 73,169 people there to see it.

Real Sociedad v Barcelona, kick-off 4.15pm, was the first game at Anoeta since it reopened and it was a revival. La Real moved to Anoeta in 1993. It was pretty enough, but it was never the same; it was never Atoxa, their former ground, and it was never home either. It was barely even a football ground, ruined by a running track. For 25 years, they played before a running track, fans miles from the action, shallow stands distancing them further, and for 25 years they mostly hated it. Visitors often left underwhelmed and some wondered if the ground was a reason results weren’t better. No one doubted there was reason to do something about it. Quarter of a century on, they finally did.

On Saturday, that wait was over at last. It’s not finished yet – 26,756 crammed in on Saturday, 40,000 will do eventually – but Anoeta is better already, at once old and new, optimism overflowing. At one end there is a wall, behind which lie bricks, rubble, skips and the old stand, still there but vacant, dusty and awaiting demolition, a solitary man walking back and forth as the game goes on; at the other is the new Aitor Zabaleta stand – named after the fan killed by the Frente Atlético in 1998 – decked in blue and white and bouncing about; to the sides, seats rise steeply from the pitch, which is two metres lower than it was, dropped down and drawn closer. Never mind seeing the players at last, they can almost touch them now, smell the grass.

On every seat, a blue and white flag had been left and a huge ovation greeted former striker Imanol Agirretxe, invited on before the game, walking through a guard of honour from both teams to score the first goal at the new(ish) place. “It’s a pity it doesn’t count,” he said, but it did when Aritz Elustondo belted one in after 15 minutes and the place erupted. In their first “home” game for so long Real Sociedad led Barcelona – who had only won there once in 10 with the track, and who did not even manage a shot on target for half an hour – and in three second-half minutes, they had three one-on-ones, slicing through Barcelona on the counter.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A look inside the new Anoeta. Photograph: Soccrates Images/Getty Images

Each time, though, they wasted the chance, Marc-André ter Stegen standing tall and wide before them: Juanmi shot over, Theo Hernández hit it straight at him, and then Juanmi was denied. And in the very next minute, at the other end Geró Rulli fluffed a punch and Luis Suárez scored. Three minutes after that, another mistake, and Ousmane Dembélé made it 2-1. As the clock ticked down, Juanmi had another clear chance, his header drifting wide. “We deserved much more; they beat us with two rebounds,” Elustondo said, while Barcelona manager Ernesto Valverde admitted: “I’m worried, but only a little bit.” As for Asier Garitano, he was fuming. “Losing to Barcelona thanks to two dead balls, pffff …” he said, “… you can’t even begin to imagine how frustrated I am.”

The fans were too, one headline describing an “incomplete party”, but it had been a party still and as they departed they were happy as well. After all, as El Diario Vasco puts it, offering up an essential truth missed by so many, especially those in charge: “We didn’t go to the game, we went to the ground.”

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It was 6.15pm when they left, two and half hours before kick-off 100km away, just enough time to get there – or not, as it turned out – for the league game that has been played more times than any other: Athletic versus Madrid is a classic.

For 99 years and 11 months, Athletic played at the old San Mamés; the new one has been home for five years now, and it has been a success. A model too: Athletic found a way of building a better stadium without entirely losing the essence of the old one. Their Basque policy helps and few clubs (perhaps none) celebrate tradition, culture and history like they do, while playing on the same site contributes as well the pre-match ritual retained, the same faces populating the same bars. Which is why the stadium changes but it still feels the same.

Especially when they play like this. “A lion is always a lion,” AS’s headline ran, its front page celebrating: “Rugged football at San Mamés.” Athletic went for Madrid man to man – “I like to asphyxiate opponents,” said coach Toto Berrizzo – and took a first-half lead through Iker Muniain. They had opportunities for more too, although the anxiety to take them perhaps contributed to the fact they didn’t, but Isco came on to equalise in a game that was fast, aggressive and flowing, even when footballers tumbled, which they did often, the noise rising with every tackle. Where the final whistle saw confrontation give way to embrace, battle over. A game, above all, that was fun – the way it’s supposed to be, the way we have convinced ourselves that it always was, even when it wasn’t.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Athletic fans during the match. Photograph: Soccrates Images/Getty Images

This was a weekend marked by goalkeepers. Ter Stegen saved Barcelona – “he was perfect,” Jordi Alba said – Eibar’s Dimitrovic denied Atlético – “he was the star,” Diego Simeone said after he made nine saves at the Metropolitano – and Rulli made two dreadful mistakes, to offer Barcelona a way back. At San Mamés meanwhile, Unai Simón made three impressive saves.

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A youth teamer who joined the club at 14, Simón is still only 21 and four days before the season started, he was at Elche on loan, but then Athletic lost Kepa to Chelsea. Their second goalkeeper Iago Herrerín was injured and their third, Álex Remiro, had been banished to the stands because he is yet to sign a new contract. They had no one else, so they brought Simón back – it cost them €175,000 – and put him straight in. Three games on, he faced Madrid. “A wall,” Marca called him. “He’s a discovery for me and for the club,” Berrizzo admitted. “He was frightening,” full-back Oscar De Marcos insisted. One line was repeated everywhere, from AS to Marca, Carrousel to El Correo: “Simón got his doctorate at San Mamés,” it runs – which is better than getting it from wherever Spain’s politicians are getting theirs these days.

Euskadi prides itself on goalkeepers. José Ángel Iríbar is Basque, Luis Arconda too. Even Iker Casillas, given a Basque name by his Athletic-supporting father, made his debut at the old San Mamés. It felt right somehow; the whole day did, the day everyone looked north, where two historic, special clubs took Madrid and Barcelona to the wire at new grounds that embrace traditions rather than turn their backs on it, staging games worthy of them. “It was intense, tough, very Athletic,” said Julen Lopetegui, a former goalkeeper born in Euskadi and raised watching La Real at Atoxa, the home whose passing they lamented for quarter of a century.

Talking points

• Huesca’s first ever first division game at El Alcoraz was Rayo Vallecano’s first victory of the season.

• Athletic and Real Sociedad knew they would be the centre of attention, but few anticipated the same for Eibar. Down in Madrid, though, they scored late to lead Atlético, only for a 94th-minute equaliser to arrive from Borja Garcés, a 19-year-old striker coming on as sub and making his debut. That leaves Atlético seven points off the top already and means this is their worst start to a season – after four games, at least – since Simeone took over. “It’s cloudy,” José María Giménez said, “but the sun will come out tomorrow.”