Real Sociedad were one of the very best teams in LaLiga before the coronavirus pause, but really struggled after the restart and only just scraped into the Europa League on the final day.
In the end, Real Sociedad do deserve to be in Europe. They only spent three matchdays all season outside of the European qualification spots, so to have slipped out right at the end would have been harsh.
When evaluating their 2019/20 campaign, it’s largely positive. They had the youngest squad in all of LaLiga after assembling a group of very talented youngsters, some imported and many from their own academy. Imanol Alguacil, a former academy coach at Real Sociedad, built a simple tactical system around Martin Odegaard’s supreme talents and it worked.
Going in to the coronavirus pause, Real Sociedad were fourth in the table and also in to the Copa del Rey final, which still has to be played. Yet, they were so poor after the break, partly because of injuries and partly because they just seemed to have lost all momentum.
In the final minutes of the final day, it took a late goal away at Atletico Madrid to move them back into a Europa League qualification spot.
So, Real Sociedad do have some work to do in the summer. There were so many positives, but the poor performances of the final 11 rounds showed they may need more squad depth and also that they might need another veteran figure or two to improve this team’s mentality.
