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Real Sociedad, famous for youth teams that have produced players such as Luis Arconada, Jesús María Zamora, Agustin Aranzabal and Xabi Alonso, come from San Sebastián, capital of the smallest province of Spain, Gipuzkoa, in the Basque region. They play at Estadio Anoeta but for eighty years after its opening in 1913, Atotxa, officially known as the Estadio de Atocha, was their home. One of the first football grounds in Spain, built in the English style, it was in the centre of San Sebastián tucked between a hill and a railway track and held 27,000 people in such close proximity to the pitch that it provided a fearsome atmosphere. Atotxa was built by the city council on the site of the velodrome, a decision that angered the city's cycling activist Monsieur Comet to the extent that he put a curse on the club similar to that which folklore claims held back Derby County, that they would not win anything while they played at the stadium.

Clearly cyclists are more powerful than gypsies, for while Derby’s curse lasted until 1946, Real Sociedad’s continued. They got to the King's Cup final in 1913, 1928 and 1951 but lost each time to Barcelona and it was not until the eighties, with a generation of players from the club's youth team, that the curse was broken with two league trophies in a row and, finally, the King's Cup in 1987.

In the early nineties the Estadio Anoeta was built nearby. Real moved there in 1993. The original concept was for an expanded stadium to seat 42,000 but it seats 32,000, which even though it offers the possibility of future expansion seems but a modest increase in revenue for such upheaval and loss of identity, especially as Anoeta is regarded by many Real supporters as a soulless place with no atmosphere. The club tried to buy the new stadium off the city, but the city would not sell. The club developed plans to remove the athletics track, but this never came to fruition. Since 2009 Real have shared the stadium with Basque Rugby Union; Biarritz Olympique Pays Basque and Aviron Bayonnais have both played there.

Despite their similar capacities the contrast between the new stadium and the old could hardly be greater; from compact and intimidating wood and corrugated iron sheds to the generously proportioned concrete bowl. The pitch looked huge, the fierce Biscayan storms had subsided to blustery winds, and Real might be bottom of this Champions League group but like us they are recovering in the league and are now up to eighth place. Yet, quite the opposite of their rivals from Bilbao who tore into us with devastating effect the last time we visited this region, Real looked overawed and ready to be intimidated, especially after Javier Hernández caught Iñigo Martínez with a stray elbow and goalkeeper Claudio Bravo dropped the ball after a mild bumping which earned Chris Smalling a severe lecture from referee Nicola Rizzoli, who was in charge of last year’s final. Our players seemed unable to recognise the opportunity afforded them by opponents who had not understood the steepness of our sudden decline and were wracked with fear. We passed the ball about in safe areas as usual but Wayne Rooney and Shinji Kagawa were among those whose loose forward passes merely served to encourage our manager’s inclination towards caution.

A confident Antonio Valencia kept up a supply of crosses and Kagawa shot wide after working with Patrice Evra up the left side of the field and exchanging crisply with Rooney; Kagawa’s next shot forced the goalkeeper into action but we did not test him enough. Marouane Fellaini was operating in a pivotal position but got himself booked for putting Markel Bergara on the floor. There was little to entertain the distant crowd until a quarter of the match had slowly passed yet for all our calm control we had hardly threatened at all and the light dawned on the Real players that we were not able to live up to our history. They shrugged off their respect and gave us cause for worry. Carlos Martínez had already ventured forward to provide a cross and now there was consternation in our defence from a corner he won after a fluid move. In the closing minutes of the half David de Gea caught Carlos’ cross sweetly but mispunched the next from Carlos Vela. Vela got behind our defence but Nemanja Vidić was covering and executed a telling challenge. Alberto de la Bella’s curling shot went a lot nearer the post than de Gea had anticipated.

Things won are done; men prize more the thing ungained and it was galling to see how Real players had assessed our lack of ambition and become a different prospect than the timid team which had started the match even if, upon the resumption after the interval, Rubén Pardo’s shot impressed their supporters more than it did de Gea. Evra had to be alert to track and steal a pass aimed for Vela. Fellaini, already booked, was enticed into a clumsy challenge on Anton Griezmann and Kagawa, stuck out on the wing, was not having his best night. Yet as Real’s attacking opened up the game these two players made what should have been the opening goal; Fellaini’s pass to Valencia, Kagawa’s instant control and superbly executed cross left Hernández the task, which he failed, of side footing it home from six yards. Kagawa was bundled over in their area and another good pass from Fellaini was wasted by a poor choice from Rooney to the offside Hernández.

The substitutions briefly injected great urgency into our play. Robin van Persie had come on for Hernández, Kagawa had moved to his natural midfield position and Ashley Young was on for Rooney. Kagawa’s run enabled Young’s cross and van Persie smashed it against the post. Another ball from Kagawa went to van Persie on the right, whose cut back was just too sharp. One had warmed to the referee when he gave a good ticking off to Iñigo for suggesting that Rooney might be cautioned for a foul but when Young was challenged by Bergara in the area Rizzoli, being Italian, was enchanted by Young’s operatic dive and awarded us a penalty. One was reminded of Sir Alex Ferguson’s piece on Ryan Giggs, who has won only five penalties in his United career. "He always stays on his feet. He stumbles but never goes down. I would ask him after a heavy foul in the box, why he had declined to go down. 'I don't go down,' he would say." It would have been an embarrassment to win a match on such artifice and Van Persie’s shot was not a bad one but Bravo dived to his left and saved it.

The drama reversed the flow of the match again. Not for the first time this season we were caught out with a quickly taken corner kick, Vela used his chest to try to convert Xabi Prieto’s shot and only just failed. Another Real move ended with a heart-in-mouth moment when Rio Ferdinand headed on back to de Gea. Although we were putting in repeated crosses and enjoying the greater possession our effort had become diffuse. We could have lost the match by leaving Iñigo unmarked at a corner but his header went over the bar. We tried another method; Fellaini, whose clumsiness had been testing the referee’s patience, got sent off for an utterly pointless trip on David Zurutuza. Added time was as a result tense. Valencia gave the ball away to Prieto but Rio managed to usher Haris Seferović aside; Chori Castro’s shot was wide. We had managed to hold on to a draw in a match which had been there for the taking, a fixture both our rivals had won.

We have played twenty one competitive games in Spain over fifty seven years and won only twice. It takes a brilliance which we have temporarily lost; David Beckham’s thirty yarder in La Coruña in the quarter final of 2002, Hernández’ ice cool finish in Valencia in 2010. Our ten draws in the country, six of them scoreless, have offered only labour for our travail. Arithmetically this scoreless night made little difference to our prospects; even if we had won we would still have needed good results against both Leverkusen and Shakhtar. Real’s European season is almost certainly over. Their players used to say that in the old Atotxa on big match nights the atmosphere was so fierce that the bench vibrated. Where the stadium used to be there is now a square with a sign forbidding the playing of football.

Paul Andrew James