Real Madrid vs Sociedad: La Liga – prediction, team news, lineups

Who: Real Madrid vs Real Sociedad What: Spanish football’s La Liga Where: Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid, Spain When: August 26, at 9pm (19:00 GMT) How to follow: Al Jazeera Sport will bring you all the buildup from 16:00 GMT ahead of our live text commentary stream

As Real Madrid and Real Sociedad go head-to-head on Wednesday, it will match up one of last season’s trophy winners in Spain against a side desperate to put their hands on silverware this time around.

Either Los Blancos or their rivals Barcelona have appeared in all but four of the last 12 finals of the Copa Del Rey, Spain’s premier cup competition, but Sociedad claimed victory last season, beating Atletico Madrid.

Real, meanwhile, were struggling to keep pace with Barca in La Liga and head into the new term seeking to avoid a third season without a trophy.

Al Jazeera Sport takes a look at the La Liga fixture where Jose Mourinho makes his first appearance in front of a home crowd on his return as Real manager.

Mourinho’s second spell in charge of Los Blancos began with a last-gasp 2-1 victory at Espanyol in La Liga on Saturday

Real needed substitute Carlos Espi to pounce in the 90th minute to grab the winner after Jude Bellingham opened the scoring in Los Blancos’ opening fixture of the season, before Alex Calatrava levelled for the home side in Barcelona.

“I think that we deserved to win but that Espanyol didn’t deserve to lose,” Mourinho told reporters.