Ahead of Real Madrid's game at Real Sociedad, there were plenty of reasons to imagine that Zinedine Zidane might have been grumpy by Sunday night. His side were making the tricky trip to Anoeta without five projected starters: Keylor Navas, Pepe, Luka Modric, Karim Benzema and some guy named Cristiano Ronaldo.
Barcelona had dazzled the night before in beating Real Betis 6-2 and Zidane, who delivered the club's 11th European Cup, was going into a new season with, basically, no new faces from the transfer market. Sure, Madrid unveiled two players in the past week -- Alvaro Morata and Marco Asensio -- but it was a bit of sham.