Unai Simón caps myth-making week with another extraordinary night | Sid Lowe

For the third time in six days everyone got to their feet to hand a standing ovation to Unai Simón, dressed in all black, before the world. Named the best men’s goalkeeper on the planet, holding the Lev Yashin trophy, they had applauded him at the London Palladium on Monday night and before the game began at San Mamés, Bilbao, on Sunday. Now somewhere in the middle of it all, the ferocity of the 197th Basque derby, there was another moment, even more meaningful and more lasting, a cheer again giving way to something deeper: an appreciation for a man as well as his work closing a week that will be forever his. Which means it will be forever theirs too.

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Real Sociedad and Athletic Club had been doing battle for 72 minutes and it was 2-1 when Simon took off to make a save that denied Carlos Soler an equaliser and defied belief. As the ball flew off his palm, San Mamés exploded. And then it happened: never mind that Athletic still had a derby to win and a corner to defend, forget the fact that the lead was a single goal, the visitors relentless now and 25 minutes still to resist; at the stadium everyone calls the Cathedral, a place of ritual and liturgy like no other, the entire congregation, 50,092 people, started clapping. Started and did not stop. For a minute, maybe more, it was like the match that matters most didn’t matter at all, momentarily fading until it was just him and them together.

That was just one of four superb stops that Simón made as Athletic ended La Real’s four-derby winning run, those saves and goals from Iñaki Williams first and Álex Berenguer giving them a 2-1 win. There had been a six-minute period in the first half alone, immediately after Luka Sucic had made it 1-1, in which he saved from Ander Barrenetxea on 33, Sucic on 34, and Mikel Oyarzabal on 38, then gave everyone a coronary when he dropped a shoulder and dribbled past Oyarzabal on 40. But this, the last of them on 72, was the best; it was also the culmination of an extraordinary night and a six unique days, the kind myths are made of. “We already knew. If anyone [else] had any questions about the trophy, those can be put aside now,” said Athletic’s coach, Edin Terzic. But it was not really the fact that Simon had taken the trophy; it was how he had, when he had.

On Monday, Simon had boarded a Vueling flight from Bilbao for the Ballon d’Or ceremony. A World Cup winner, a tournament record breaker too – albeit one who that day in New Jersey said: “If my gloves could talk they would say they didn’t have to do much” – he knew there was a chance of winning the goalkeeper’s award. For a few weeks, he had wondered what he might say, ordering his thoughts as he drove into Lezama each morning as he had been doing virtually every day for 15 years. By the time he took to the Palladium stage, he knew. Delivered with a light in his eye and without notes, with a steady voice, the speech was 491 words long and lasted two minutes and 21 seconds.

It was also perfect. Spain was taken by it, this abnormal normality: an expression of a man, a perfectly out of place, somehow different to its sport, its society even. It is not unusual to thank people, no, but there was nothing hysterical, nothing Hollywood about this, no posturing, no self indulgence, the only celebration that of a culture. Instead, there was an understated authenticity, gratitude to his cuadrilla, the lifelong mates who are still there, making light of it all; the partner who is an “oasis of calm”, which he knows he needs in this game; the parents who guided him; the goalkeepers who shared the World Cup with him and the friends – Óscar De Marcos, Iñigo Lekue and Gorka Guruzeta – who are about the least footballer footballers you could wish to meet.

To José Ángel Iribar, the legendary Athletic goalkeeper whose statue stands outside San Mamés and whose presence is felt everywhere inside, in whose honour they wear black. To Koldo Asua, the coach who told the boy arriving in Bilbao to leave his ego behind, that what truly matters is the human legacy you leave not the trophies you take: to be remembered as good people. To all those who, he said, had taught him to love a club, to the fans above all.

This is Simón’s ninth season in the first team at Athletic, who he joined at 14. He might not have had any. In the summer of 2018, aged 21 and fourth choice, he went on loan to Elche. But then Chelsea signed Kepa Arrizabalaga. Iago Herrerín got injured. And negotiations over a contract renewal with Álex Remiro stalled, Athletic refusing to play him and eventually losing him to la Real. So they called Elche and asked for their goalkeeper back. “Sometimes you need some luck; that was mine,” Simón says. He hadn’t played a competitive game for Elche; within three days he had played his first for Athletic. He has played almost 300 since, nowhere he would rather be. “In the first few years we had to eat shit, we had bad moments. But even then – even then – there’s something,” he says.

Villarreal 0-1 Espanyol, Levante 0-2 Atlético Madrid, Rayo 3-0 Celta, Betis 2-1 Málaga, Barcelona 6-1 Alavés, Getafe 3-1 Sevilla, Racing Santander 0-3 Real Madrid, Elche 0-1 Valencia, Athletic 2-1 Real Sociedad

Monday: Deportivo v Osasuna (8pm GMT)

As for the good moments, those are unmatched. The five days after Athletic won the Copa del Rey in 2024 were the best of our lives, he said. Yes, even more than those that followed winning the World Cup. And although he was undisputed first choice, he hadn’t even won the Copa del Rey: instead, he was on the bench guiding Julen Agirrezabala, the substitute handed cup games, through the shootout that won their only major trophy in 40 years. When he won the Zamora award as La Liga’s best goalkeeper that season, the first in 50 years since Iribar, the head coach Ernesto Valverde impressed upon him that this mattered – for the club. One of the best things about winning Euro 2024 with Spain, he said, was that it shows academy kids that you can be at clubs like Athletic, that you didn’t need to leave – something he extended to his friend Oyarzabal at Real Sociedad, a man very like he is, silent even in success. Especially in success. Now he had been named the world’s best goalkeeper, an ovation greeting the final Eskerrik asko denoi: “thank you, everyone”. No one foresaw him being the moment of the night, but here he was. Questioned for so long, embraced now.

And here he was back at San Mamés six days later. Here they all were, the timing as impeccable as the performance, the calendar kind. The derby. The derby, unlike any other: all about identity, belonging, tradition. Real Sociedad, led out by Oyarzabal. And on the 50th anniversary of the most emblematic derby moment of them all. In 1976, captains Inaxio Kortabarria and Iribar had walked out at Atotxa together carrying the Ikurriña, the still illegal Basque flag. On Sunday, now 76 and 83 respectively, they led the way out again, handed a guard of honour and carrying an Ikurriña. The original, sewn by the sister of Real’s José Angel de la Hoz Uranga and smuggled into the ground, waited in a frame on the halfway line. San Mamés, blue and white shirts in among the red as ever, applauded them on.

Simón followed Iribar out, he too handed a guard of honour. Oyarzabal, Remiro and all his opponents, clapped him on. The goalkeepers from Athletic’s academy, in black tops, No 1 on the back, held a giant tarpaulin shirt. Unique in the team, it read. There was an ovation then. And then, an hour and a half later, another one: as if Simón was walking off, his work done, when in fact they were in the middle of it all still. When at last it was over, a win secured, he listened to the players and fans sing Mikel Laboa’s Txoria txori together, a song of freedom. “It’s lovely,” he said. “Because they identify with this team, they’re proud of us.”

Of all the nights, Simón had chosen this one to produce probably the performance of his life. “Enormous”, Sport called him; “gigantic”, El Mundo Deportivo said. Even Real’s Jon Aramburu, still angry at the penalty he was judged to have committed on Nico Williams from which Berenguer made it 2-1, said: “That’s why he won the trophy.” The opener, made by Williams and scored by Williams, Nico releasing Iñaki, was superb. On another intense, enjoyable night, described by the referee – they’re doing post-game interviews now – as “a typical derby: hard but noble too”, plenty played well. But no one got near to Simón, man of the match by a mile. “What a goalkeeper you have!” Terzic was told. “The best in the world,” he said.

Pos Team P GD Pts 1 Barcelona 11 34 30 2 Atletico Madrid 11 14 28 3 Real Madrid 11 18 27 4 Real Betis 11 3 23 5 Real Sociedad 11 0 19 6 Sevilla 11 -2 17 7 Athletic Bilbao 10 4 15 8 Villarreal 11 0 12 9 Celta Vigo 11 0 12 10 Alaves 11 -2 12 11 Rayo Vallecano 10 -5 12 12 Getafe 11 -8 12 13 Deportivo A Coruna 10 0 11 14 Espanyol 11 -1 11 15 Osasuna 10 -10 11 16 Racing Santander 11 -14 11 17 Elche 11 -4 10 18 Levante 11 -5 10 19 Valencia 11 -9 9 20 Malaga 11 -13 5