Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Carlos Álvarez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Levante heard it as anything else.
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Serginho is 38 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Getafe? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
27 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Levante hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levante this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Levante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kervin Arriaga is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Carlos Álvarez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Levante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roger Brugué is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Lucas has just signed for Levante, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levante this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Levante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kervin Arriaga is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Tai Abed was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.67. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Tiziano Van Der Tuin is 20, and Levante have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Marcos Ledesma has just signed for Levante, and for once the answer mattered.
Carlos Álvarez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Levante
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Pol Castillo has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Àlex Santos is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
10 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
In brief
BoardroomNo investment in the facilities at Levante
Carlos Álvarez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mario Maroto has just signed for Levante, and for once the answer mattered.
Still no offer on the table, and Unai Elgezabal’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
The name of Carlos Espí has come up in conversations Levante were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Levante hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levante this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Levante training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kervin Arriaga is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.