Levante’s squad for the 2026/27 Primera Federación season is beginning to take shape around one particular asset: players who already know what it takes to win promotion.
Iria Castro, Lía Muiño and Dana Benítez are the first three signings announced by the club. They come from different backgrounds and play in different positions, but all three have been part of teams that moved up a division.
That hardly appears coincidental in a squad being built with an immediate objective. Levante presented Javier Aguado as the coach entrusted with returning the team to the top flight. He has also publicly embraced that expectation: “We have the excitement and the responsibility of returning to Liga F.”
The campaign will begin on 13 September away to Alhama, the other club relegated from the top division. By then, Levante will need to have turned their opening moves into a team capable of competing for one of the two promotion places.
Levante’s signings for 2026/27
The latest arrival is Iria Castro.
The Burgos-born defender joins from DUX Logroño and has signed until June 2028. She can play at centre-back or left-back and arrives after four seasons with the Riojan club.
Castro was an important member of the side that earned promotion to Liga F in 2024/25, contributing six goals during the campaign. She remained a regular in the top flight the following season, making 23 appearances and playing 1,450 minutes across Liga F and the Copa de la Reina.
Levante have therefore added a 24-year-old who has not only competed in the division they are trying to return to. She also understands the demands of a promotion campaign: the pressure at the top of the table and the need to sustain a challenge over an entire season.
Lía Muiño was the first signing announced by the club.
The Galician midfielder has been involved in two promotions with Deportivo. She was part of the original squad assembled for the club’s women’s project and celebrated promotion to the top flight in 2018/19 before moving to the United States. She returned to Deportivo in 2023 and went up again during the 2023/24 season.
After spending time on loan at Atlético Vilalonga, she made 12 first-team appearances for Deportivo last season. She has now signed for Levante until 2028.
Dana Benítez brings a different kind of experience. The midfielder developed in the academies of Atlético de Madrid and CD Tacón, the club that later became Real Madrid. During her second spell at Atlético, she won Segunda Federación and earned promotion to Primera Federación with the reserve team.
Her progress took her into the first-team set-up and allowed her to make her Champions League debut against Rangers. She divided last season between Portugal’s Racing Power and Fundación Albacete, where she played 12 matches after joining in January.
All three signings are between 22 and 26 years old and have contracts until 2028. Levante have not brought them in merely to get through one season in Primera Federación, but to form a core that could remain together if the team wins promotion.
Levante’s academy moves to the forefront
The rebuild is not being carried out through signings alone.
Inés Rizo, Daniela Luque and Núria Morell have extended their contracts until 2028 and will become permanent members of the first-team squad. All three come through the reserve-team structure, although they reach this transition at different stages of their development.
Rizo has the most first-team experience. The forward made 23 appearances across Liga F and the Copa de la Reina last season. She also scored five goals in the six matches she played for the reserves.
Daniela Luque made 12 competitive first-team appearances during the 2025/26 campaign. The midfielder, born in 2006, joined the reserve team in 2023/24 and made her Liga F debut at the beginning of the following season.
Morell is yet to make a competitive first-team appearance. She played 22 matches for the reserves last season and joined first-team training during the closing stages of the campaign.
Their promotion shows that Levante will not use the academy merely to complete matchday squads. Some of its players will be expected to hold permanent places in the rebuilt first team.
The continued presence of Alma Velasco until 2029 and Núria Escoms until 2028 reinforces that commitment. Both joined the club at under-12 level and completed their development within Levante’s academy.
The first announcements have therefore turned the proposed importance of the academy into more than a statement of intent.
Alharilla keeps the rebuild connected to Levante’s past
Amid the transformation, Levante will retain the player who best represents the club’s continuity.
Alharilla Casado has renewed until 2029. She arrived in the summer of 2012 and has made 356 competitive appearances and scored 43 goals in Levante colours.
The captain has played in two editions of the Champions League, two Spanish Super Cup finals and one Copa de la Reina final. She will now also be part of the side attempting to win promotion from Primera Federación.
Her presence gives the rebuild a connection to the club’s recent history. Alharilla links the Levante side that competed in Europe with a young squad facing a different responsibility: not remaining among the best, but regaining its place among them.
Reputation will not make the task easier
Javier Aguado already knows the club. He was Ángel Villacampa’s assistant during the 2021/22 season, when Levante competed in Champions League qualifying. He later managed Elche and had a spell in charge of Madrid CFF in Liga F.
He returns as head coach with a clear footballing idea: to build a bold, attacking team through a balance of experience, youth and academy talent.
He also returns with an expectation that Levante have made no attempt to hide.
The club’s history, its recent past in Liga F and the profile of its first signings will place it among the leading promotion contenders. But Primera Federación offers no rewards for reputation.
Only the champions will be promoted automatically. The teams finishing from second to fifth will have to contest the play-offs for the other place.
Levante will need to turn their status as favourites into consistency across 26 matchdays, cope with the pressure to win and ensure that urgency does not undermine their commitment to young players.
The opening moves do not yet complete the squad, but they already reveal its direction.
Levante are signing players who know how to win promotion, promoting those expected to grow with the club and retaining the player who knows its history better than anyone.
They are not simply preparing for a season in Primera Federación. They are trying to build the team that will take them out of it.
