The Ciutat de València was a cauldron of relief and elation late on Sunday as Levante sealed a 2-0 victory over Mallorca, effectively hauling themselves to the brink of La Liga survival. Kervin Arriaga’s late strike sparked wild celebrations, capping a remarkable turnaround that few outside the club’s inner circle could have predicted just months ago. The win moved Levante out of the relegation zone with one game remaining, their fate almost in their own hands.
What was already a historic relegation scrap had condensed to a five-team knife-edge before the weekend. With Sevilla, Valencia, Alavés and Espanyol pulling clear, Levante, Mallorca, Girona, Osasuna and Elche remained in peril. The financial stakes are enormous—the tightest such battle in Spanish top-flight history—but Levante now look the most likely to escape.
It is a far cry from the club’s plight in November, when they sat 19th and level on points with bottom-placed Real Oviedo. Newly promoted and possessing the division’s smallest salary cap at just €17.4m, they had collected nine points from 14 matches. A temporary coaching team managed only one more point from two games before the board turned to an unheralded 48-year-old Portuguese, Luís Castro.
“I had heard of another Luís Castro but not this one, and this one turned out to be the ideal coach for our club,” president Pablo Sánchez admitted. The other Luís Castro, a far more decorated namesake who managed Shakhtar Donetsk and Grêmio, dominated search results when the appointment was announced. Levante’s Castro had never played professionally and had quietly risen through youth coaching at Benfica, where he won the Uefa Youth League, and later rescued Dunkerque in France.
Castro inherited a side that was “letting too many goals in transitions,” as he put it. His response was to instil clarity and non-negotiables. Levante became more aggressive without the ball, pressing higher and attacking with purpose. Crucially, he dispensed with reputations. “If the worst player has the best salary, it doesn’t matter: he doesn’t play,” he insisted. That philosophy quickly bit: summer record signing Karl Etta Eyong, who cost €3m and scored five early goals, has not started any of the last 14 games. For Castro, honest communication and defined roles trumped price tags.
The effect was dramatic. A 3-0 win over Sevilla in his first game set the tone. Then came a 96th-minute winner against Elche. In the past fortnight, Levante twice came from behind to beat Osasuna and Celta 3-2, before Sunday’s commanding display against Mallorca. The three consecutive victories are their best run of the season and catapulted them to 17th, a point clear of the drop zone.
According to Opta, Levante now have just a 6% chance of relegation. They will go down only if they lose at Betis, Girona beat Elche, Mallorca fail to beat Oviedo, and Osasuna take a point at Getafe—a precise combination that would leave them stranded on 42 points in a three-way tie with an inferior goal difference. In contrast, Mallorca’s survival odds are a mere 5%.
The achievement is all the more staggering given the club’s resources. Levante’s entire squad cost less than the individual fees paid for players at many rivals. Castro, who began his coaching journey with five-year-olds, stressed that his methods were built on intelligence rather than athleticism. “This isn’t athletics: it’s more often about your brain than your physical qualities,” he explained. He told players directly why they were in or out of the side, demanding a reaction without lengthy explanations.
That frankness, delivered in a voice reminiscent of a snooker commentator’s measured tones, won over a dressing room that had been adrift. The victory over Mallorca was sealed after Carlos Álvarez’s opener, but the scenes at full-time—captain Vicente Iborra leading a thunder clap, forward Roger Brugué chanting “yes, we can”—spoke to a unity that had been missing.
As Levante prepare for a final-day trip to Betis, they do so knowing that survival is within reach, a scenario that seemed impossible when Castro arrived in December. A year ago, he was an unknown quantity; now, Las Provincias declares he has “written his name into Levante’s history in gold letters.” For a club that has never spent big and often sells its best talent, staying in La Liga would be worth tens of millions and secure another season among the elite.
The 48-year-old quietly slips away from the celebrations, but his imprint is unmistakable. Levante’s resurgence is not just about tactics; it is about restoring belief. As Castro himself said, players are intelligent people who perform when they know what is expected. His story, built on a foundation of youth coaching and a refusal to be defined by a lack of playing pedigree, mirrors the club’s own underdog ethos. Based on reporting from The Guardian.