Osasuna Beat Racing Santander 2-0 at El Sadar as Budimir and Osambela End the Winless Run

PAMPLONA, SPAIN · SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2026

If a new manager bounce is supposed to look like anything, it looks like the first nine minutes at El Sadar on Sunday. Osasuna, back under Jagoba Arrasate on his return to the dugout he knows best, beat Racing Santander 2-0 in La Liga's Matchday 9 to end a six-match winless run — and the game was effectively framed inside its opening exchanges. Ante Budimir converted a ninth-minute penalty he had won himself, substitute Asier Osambela slammed home the second two minutes from time, and in between Racing had most of the ball and almost nothing to show for it. Flashscore's report called it a morale-boosting win, and Sportradar's fixture record confirms the bare facts: 2-0 at El Sadar, a goal in each half, and a home crowd that finally got to enjoy the last few minutes of a match.

Nine minutes, two scares, one penalty

Osasuna started like a side that had been waiting all week to be unleashed. Inside five minutes Jonathan Dubasin stabbed home from barely a yard out after Racing failed to clear a corner, and El Sadar was on its feet — until a VAR review chalked the goal off for offside. The let-off lasted about as long as it took Osasuna to come again. Jeanuel Belocian caught Budimir in the visitors' box, the Croatian picked himself up, and — as Sofascore's account of the match put it — he earned the penalty and buried it low to the left. Flashscore clocked it as Budimir's seventh goal of the campaign and his fourth successful penalty of the season, rolled home on nine minutes with the kind of calm that has made him the one constant of Osasuna's autumn: whatever else has wobbled in Pamplona, the big striker's aim from twelve yards has not.

What followed the goal was the game's long, strange middle. The contest settled, Santander grew into it, and the ball began to live in the areas Racing wanted it. But possession is only a threat if it ends somewhere, and Flashscore noted that the visitors failed to test Aitor Fernandez once before half-time. Osasuna, a goal up and in no hurry, were content to defend their box, break when the moments came and let the clock do the work a second goal would eventually have to finish.

The man of the match wore the wrong shirt

The clearest sign that Osasuna were the better side is that Racing's best player was their goalkeeper. Flashscore named Julen Agirrezabala its man of the match even in defeat, and the statistics kept by SportsCafe show why the visitors were still in the game at the end: five saves from the Racing keeper, against a home side that finished with 20 shots, seven of them on target. Budimir smashed one effort into the side netting from a tight angle early in the second half as Osasuna pushed for the goal that would have ended the argument, and for a while the single-goal lead kept its usual tension — one mistake, one set piece, and the afternoon turns. Racing's one real moment of menace came just after the hour, when Sergio Canales forced a routine stop from Fernandez from 25 yards. Routine is the word that damns them: a side chasing a game produced one shot on target all afternoon.

The underlying numbers are blunter still. SportsCafe's match record gives Osasuna an expected-goals figure of 3.42 to Racing's 0.31, with the hosts' 16 shots from inside the box telling you where the game was actually played. Racing won the possession count, finishing with the majority of the ball and more completed passes, and it bought them territory without danger — tidy football that stopped, reliably, at the edge of the final third. Sofascore's reading of the afternoon reached the same conclusion: Osasuna created more, shot from better areas, and managed the closing stages like a side that knew the second goal was a matter of time rather than hope.

Osambela, off the bench, on the scoresheet

It arrived on 88 minutes, and it was made by two substitutes. Osambela had only been on the pitch for about twenty minutes, introduced on 67 minutes in place of Moi Gomez as Arrasate refreshed a tiring midfield, and Inigo Arguibide — himself on from the bench — drove the effort that Agirrezabala could only block. The rebound fell to Osambela, who slammed it home from close range for his first goal of the campaign, a pile of red shirts pouring towards the corner and the result finally matching the balance of chances. There is a particular satisfaction in a clinching goal scored by a player the manager sent on to close a game out: Arrasate's changes did not just protect the lead, they doubled it.

What it leaves behind

For Osasuna, the value of the afternoon is bigger than the two goals. A six-match winless run had dragged a proud home club towards the wrong end of the table, and the response to a change of coach is usually measured in exactly this currency: intensity early, a clean sheet, and a ground that sounded like itself again. Flashscore's report had the timely win lifting the Rojillos up to ninth place, and even allowing for how early the season still is, the direction of travel matters — Budimir is scoring, the defence kept a side with more possession down to a single effort on target, and the new-old manager has a win to build a week on. For Racing and Jose Lopez, the mirror image is less kind. Flashscore recorded their winless run stretching to four matches, drawn two and lost two, with this the afternoon their neat possession game ran into its limit: you cannot draw your way out of trouble one careful pass at a time when the other box is where games are decided. Santander stay 16th in Flashscore's account, close enough to the bottom to feel it, and in need of a forward line that turns all that possession into something a goalkeeper has to dive for.

El Sadar, in the end, got the script it wanted on the day its old manager came home: a penalty from the striker who never stopped scoring, a clincher from a substitute, and a win that had been six matches in the waiting. Osasuna's season starts again from here.