Alavés and the August of the Stranger: When the Hottest Seat in Spain Belongs to a Quiet Poet in Vitoria

Hamburg, a late autumn night, I sit before the screen reviewing the La Liga table after round 4. And I see something no prediction algorithm ever dreamed of: Deportivo Alavés, a club from the small city of Vitoria with a modest capacity of nearly 20,000, sitting second, above Real Madrid, with a perfect 10 points from four matches. In that instant, I remember a line I wrote long ago: "Scores are lifeless things. Behind every goal, a human life is breathing." But tonight, the scoreboard itself tells a story with a soul so strange it feels surreal. Quique Sánchez Flores, a strategist often dismissed as "a man of the past," has just been named La Liga's Best Coach of August. The shocking detail lies not in the award itself, but in the fact that he defeated Hansi Flick of Barcelona and José Mourinho of Real Madrid — the men Spanish media always reserve their front pages for. Meanwhile, my microphone in Hamburg has never once recorded a Sánchez Flores press conference in three years. And that makes me more curious than any El Clásico. The context of this feat lies not in a tactical revolution. No novel 4-3-3, no fierce high press, no possession-based football that sends analysts into ecstasy. Sánchez Flores' Alavés is simply a well-organized unit that knows who they are, knows who the opponent is, and knows when to steal the match. The 3-0 win over Getafe carried the feel of a perfect afternoon where every pass found its address. The draw against Rayo Vallecano showed a team that knows how to suffer. But the emotional 5-2 victory over Osasuna in round 4 is what convinces me this is not merely a lucky start. It is a message: this team can score, and they can score when challenged. I recall a principle thirty years of following German football taught me: Germans call it "Ergebnisqualität" — the quality of results. It differs from the quality of performance. And Alavés has an abundance of the former while lacking the data to prove the latter. No xG figures have been published to prove they deserved all 10 points. No PPDA numbers show how aggressively they press. In an era where everything is measured, Alavés is winning with something numbers cannot grasp: the cohesion of a small group that knows it cannot afford mistakes. Barcelona has 12 points with a squad worth hundreds of millions of euros. Alavés has 10 points with a squad assembled under the constant impatience of their owners. But football does not calculate squad value on paper. If it did, we would never have had stories like Leicester City winning the Premier League in 2026, or the story I witnessed in the Bundesliga when a small team from a town no one had heard of beat Bayern Munich right at the Allianz Arena. The Hamburg night taught me that football does not need a stadium; it only needs a voice and a heart awake at three in the morning. But as someone who has lived through many seasons, I must ask the question no one in Vitoria wants to hear: is this the effect of an experienced strategist who knows how to refresh a dressing room in the short term? I have witnessed too many brilliant August starts like this — when the big clubs are not yet in rhythm, when the fixture list is still forgiving, when the legs of European-bound teams have not been drained. And I have also witnessed too many small clubs crumbling in October, when the schedule thickens, when injuries begin to appear, when opposition defenders have figured out how you attack. The Alavés story, therefore, is not just about a small club rising. It is about the fragility of praise. Look at how the media covered Sánchez Flores' award. "Perfect points were not enough for Flick," "The coach who embarrassed Mourinho" — these headlines create invisible pressure. Once Alavés slips from second place, they do not merely lose their league position; they lose the narrative that defined them in the public eye. And narrative, as I have learned after thirty years of writing, is often crueler than the scoreline. German football has a concept I believe fits Alavés right now: "Lasst euch nicht blenden" — do not let yourselves be dazzled. Do not let August's glory obscure the truth that Vitoria is not a place that nurtures championship dreams, but a place that nurtures patience. Alavés, relegated in 2026 and promoted again in 2026, cannot compete with Real Madrid in financial terms or squad depth. But they can do something the giants cannot: they can make every match a final. Looking at the rest of the season, I do not believe Alavés will finish second. That defies every financial logic, every historical data point, every law of physical attrition for a squad unaccustomed to playing twice a week. But I have lived long enough to know that football never follows logic. In 2026, when I was expelled from the press room at Volksparkstadion, I learned a lesson: they could close the door in front of me, but they could not close the door of imagination. They pushed me out of a room. I walked out and found an entire stadium beckoning in my heart. For Alavés, the challenge is not whether they can maintain their form. The challenge is whether they can live with the story they have created. When you are a stranger walking into the room of giants and seizing the most prestigious seat, you must not only prove you deserve it. You must prove you can continue to deserve it, week after week, while the whole world waits for you to stumble. And that is where true poetry is written. The Hamburg night is still awake as I write these lines. And I wonder: come May, will Vitoria still be a place where dreams are allowed to exist? Every shot is an unfinished verse; every save is an ellipsis fate deliberately leaves open. Alavés's poem this season has only seen its first line written. And the first line, however beautiful, is never the most important one. The most important line is the last — when people look back and know whether the story was truly worth telling. The German machine taught me a lesson about resilience. But tonight, a small Spanish club is teaching me a different lesson: sometimes resilience is not about never falling, but about getting up and making the world turn its head. Sánchez Flores may never win a trophy with Alavés. But he has done something few coaches at big clubs achieve: he has made people speak of Vitoria as a place where football is still poetry. And when they slam the door of the press room, I find another door — the door of poetry. The blue-and-white door of Alavés, standing second in La Liga, with dreams measured not in money, but in the heartbeat of a heart awakened in the Spanish autumn.