The team that broke the duopoly: how Real Sociedad jumped Real Madrid in the only stretch of La Liga history that wasn't theirs

On 26 April 1981, with Real Madrid already winning 3-1 at Valladolid, Jesús María Zamora drove into the Sporting Gijón box at El Molinón and lashed a left-footed finish past Castro in the 90th minute. The 2-2 draw was enough: Real Sociedad finished level with Madrid on 45 points, took the title on head-to-head, then retained it the next year. The 1980-82 back-to-back, won by Alberto Ormaetxea's all-Basque squad built around Luis Arconada, Periko Alonso and Roberto López Ufarte, is the only consecutive Liga double of the modern era won by neither Madrid, Barça nor Atlético. Forty-four years on, La Real meet Madrid as a perennial top-six club under Imanol Alguacil — with a 2020 Copa, a 2023-24 Champions League last-16 run, and a fixture record that has gone almost entirely Madrid's way.