There are afternoons when a home crowd senses that something is owed to them, and El Sardinero got its repayment in full. Racing Santander, becalmed in the middle of the table and searching for rhythm, produced a performance of grit and instinct to beat Alavés 2-1 in La Liga on Saturday, a result that reshuffles the early season order and announces that this side has fight in its legs.

The hero was Yassir Zabiri, whose two goals either side of half-time flipped a match that had drifted away from the hosts. Racing had trailed to Ville Koski's early strike, absorbed the visitors' assurance, then found the belief to bite back. By the time André Almeida saw red in the closing stages, Racing were not defending a lead so much as defending their pride, and they held on to both.

For Alavés, arriving as one of the division's early pace-setters, it was a chastening trip north. They had the platform, the poise and the first goal, and still left with nothing. A season that had promised so much cleanly now carries its first blemish of true concern.

An early warning

Alavés began the way a team second in the table ought to, purposeful and unruffled, and their reward came in the 18th minute. A corner was worked to the danger area and Koski was waiting, stabbing a right-footed finish from very close range into the centre of the goal. It was a striker's goal, all timing and appetite, and it silenced a ground that had arrived expecting to set the tempo.

For a spell the visitors looked entirely comfortable with their lead, keeping the ball and asking Racing to chase it. The early goal fit the pattern of their season, a side that had scored eleven and conceded only five coming into the weekend, drilled and disciplined and difficult to unpick. Racing needed a spark, and for twenty minutes they searched for it without conviction.

But a single goal is a fragile thing to sit on, and Alavés would learn as much before the interval. The longer Racing pressed, the more the visitors' composure began to fray at the edges.

Zabiri strikes back

The equaliser, when it arrived in the 38th minute, was a moment of real quality. Iñigo Vicente threaded a through ball into the space behind the Alavés line, and Zabiri met it in the centre of the box before sweeping a left-footed finish into the bottom-left corner. It was clean, decisive and thoroughly deserved, the product of Racing's growing insistence, and El Sardinero roared its approval.

Level at the break, the momentum had swung entirely, and Racing came out for the second half with the scent of something bigger. They did not have to wait long. In the 53rd minute Zabiri struck again, this time with his right foot from the right side of the six-yard box, steering the ball into the centre of the goal to complete his turnaround from chaser to conqueror.

Two goals in fifteen minutes of playing time had transformed the afternoon. Zabiri, so peripheral in the opening quarter, had become the axis of everything, a forward who had waited for his moments and taken both with the certainty of a man in form. From a goal down, Racing now led, and they did so on merit.

Holding the line

A lead is only worth what a team can protect, and the final half-hour asked hard questions of Racing's resolve. Alavés, stung and searching, pushed for a way back into the contest, and the hosts were forced to dig in, to throw bodies in front of shots and to ride the nerves that always accompany a slender advantage against quality opposition.

The night grew fraught in the 89th minute when André Almeida was shown a red card, leaving Racing to see out the closing exchanges a man light. It was exactly the sort of complication that undoes teams still learning how to win, an invitation for the visitors to lay siege. Racing, though, refused the invitation, closing ranks and standing firm.

When the final whistle came it was greeted with the relief and delight of a crowd that had watched its team earn every inch. Racing had trailed, recovered, led and survived, and the sum of it was three points wrenched from one of the division's form sides.

Shifting the order

The victory lifts Racing Santander to eighth on seven points, their record now reading two wins, a draw and two defeats, with nine scored and nine conceded. It is the kind of result that steadies a young season, proof that this group can look a superior opponent in the eye and come away the stronger for it. The balance of their goals for and against tells of a team still finding consistency, but afternoons like this are how consistency begins.

For Alavés, the reckoning is sharper. They remain second on ten points, three wins, a draw and now two defeats to their name, and their neat early profile of eleven goals scored and five conceded has been dented by a day on which their control counted for nothing once Zabiri got going. The gap at the top will feel a little different come Monday morning, and questions of resilience will follow them home.

The story of the match, though, belongs to Racing and to their two-goal match-winner. They were behind, they were reduced to ten men, and still they would not be moved. On this evidence El Sardinero may prove an uncomfortable place to visit for a good while yet.