On 30 August 2025, Aitana Zumárraga stepped onto the pitch at the Johan Cruyff Stadium for the first match of her life in Liga F. She was 24 years old, had just left Pamplona for the first time, and the fixture list had prepared the least gentle possible debut: away to Barcelona, with Aitana Bonmatí running at her down the wing.
Alhama lost 8–0. The debut had arrived in the harshest possible way: against the champions, away from home, in a match that was over early. But the scoreline could not erase what mattered. After six seasons trying to win promotion with Osasuna, she was a Liga F footballer.
Ten months later, Alhama have been relegated. She has not.
SD Eibar announced her signing until June 2027 this Wednesday. The Navarrese full-back will now compete in a second consecutive top-flight season. The move does more than add a player to the Eibar squad: it confirms that her first year in the division was not a brief visit.
From winger to full-back
Before becoming a Liga F defender, Zumárraga was a girl playing football with boys in Mendillorri.
Her path continued through Lezkairu and CD Amigó before she joined Mulier in 2016. She was 15, still described as a quick, direct winger with a long stride. She had scored four goals the previous season.
Three years later, Osasuna signed her as a full-back.
Between those two descriptions lies much of the player she would become. The pace and the ability to cover ground along the flank remained, but her position on the pitch moved back. There she built a career defined less by moments of individual brilliance than by consistency, effort and availability.
The move to Osasuna was no small thing. Zumárraga had received her first rojillo shirt at the age of four. Her father had told her since she was small that he would love to see her play for the club of their city one day.
When Osasuna brought her in during 2019, that family wish became a real possibility.
The Osasuna dream
Aitana Zumárraga spent six seasons in Osasuna’s first team. She played 160 matches, captained the side and ran out at El Sadar. She fulfilled almost everything the girl in that first shirt could have imagined.
One thing was missing: promotion.
Osasuna came close to Liga F several times during those years. In 2023, Granada knocked the Navarrese side out in the play-off semi-finals. The following season, the team reached the final, beat Espanyol at El Sadar, but lost the tie in Barcelona.
The last attempt was different. Osasuna ended the 2024/25 season without even reaching the play-offs. For Zumárraga, it meant closing her sixth year at the club still in the second tier.
Her decision was as painful as it was understandable. She could keep waiting for Osasuna to reach Liga F, or she could leave and try to get there by another route.
She chose to leave.
“I’m going to fulfil a dream — playing in Liga F — which hasn’t been possible here,” she said in the days after announcing her departure. In that same interview she did not close the door on a return: when asked whether she would one day like to come back to an Osasuna side in Liga F, she said that would also be a dream.
She was not leaving because she had stopped feeling the club. She was leaving because her career could not keep waiting.
Leaving home to get there
Alhama had just won promotion when they signed Zumárraga in July 2025. She had played no part in that promotion campaign — she arrived afterwards, as part of the squad tasked with competing in the top flight.
It was her first time living away from Pamplona. On top of the sporting adjustment came a new city, a new climate and a new routine. After six years playing for the same club and spending her entire career in Navarre, she had to start again in Murcia.
The reward came quickly. The fixture list placed Alhama against Barcelona on the opening weekend and Zumárraga started. Her first memory in Liga F was tied to a heavy defeat, but also to the image of a footballer who had accepted leaving the place where she had always wanted to succeed in order to compete, at last, where she had always wanted to be.
She had not arrived in the division to take a photograph.
During the season she made 23 league appearances, accumulated 1,814 minutes and contributed one assist. Across all competitions, her record with Alhama came to 25 matches and 1,978 minutes.
She was a consistent presence in a team that spent most of the season battling the drop. In December, as the table tightened, Zumárraga spoke of keeping clean sheets and building the recovery from the back. Alhama could not change their fate and were relegated, but she finished the year having shown she could hold her own in the division.
That is the figure which explains her signing better than any isolated statistic.
Arriving and staying
Fulfilling her dream of making her Liga F debut depended on a decision: leaving Osasuna. Staying in the division has depended on what she did afterwards.
Eibar are not signing a player still waiting to find out whether she can compete at this level. They are signing a full-back who has already come through a complete season, played more than 1,800 league minutes and knows what it takes to defend inside a side fighting to survive.
At Ipurua she will find a different context, but not necessarily an easier one. Eibar finished the season in thirteenth place and secured their survival in the top flight. Zumárraga arrives having lived through a campaign defined by a fight against the drop and by the need to compete under pressure every single week.
She also arrives having learnt that reaching a division and belonging to it are two different things.
On 30 August 2025 she achieved the first. On 24 June 2026 she received confirmation of the second.
Aitana Zumárraga had to leave the club of her life to reach Liga F. Alhama’s relegation threatened to send her back to where she started, but her minutes in Murcia have found their continuation in Eibar.
Her team went down. She earned the right to stay.