Sid Lowe Apr 15, 2026, 08:00 AM ET

SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain -- A small boy stands in the spring sunshine outside Anoeta, home of Real Sociedad . His name is Iñaki, six or seven years old, and he is happy now. At the start of the year, the team he comes here to watch with his dad, Aimar, was in trouble. Its worst start to a season in 20 years had left it a single point from the relegation zone in LaLiga . The headlines were calling it a "crisis," the team "sunk" and "unresponsive."

Then a new coach arrived.

Iñaki didn't know much about Pellegrino Matarazzo then -- truth be told, most people here hadn't even heard of this 48-year-old from New Jersey who had never worked in Spain before. But now? "He has been like our God, the savior," Iñaki says.

" Poliki, poliki ," Matarazzo likes to say. It comes from Basque, the oldest language in Europe, and it means something like slowly, slowly or step by step . Keep calm , in other words.…