Football Season Guide

Levante put together an excellent end to the 2017/18 season to escape relegation and to earn a second year in a row in the Spanish top flight. Under Juan Ramon Lopez Muniz they had appeared doomed to drop back down to the second division, but Paco Lopez was promoted from his youth team job for the final 11 matches and his Levante side claimed 25 points from a possible 33, even ending Barcelona’s unbeaten run with a thrilling 5-4 victory. The question now is whether or not Levante can carry that momentum into this season. As good as they were under Lopez, it has to be remembered that he had never coached in the top division before, so his inexperience could perhaps be exposed over an entire league campaign. In terms of Levante’s transfer market activity, they have lost a few important members of the squad, but have signed capable replacements, while also signing some of the more impressive players they had on loan in 2017/18 onto permanent deals. Generally, therefore, the new arrivals balance out and make up for the losses. For example, they’ve sold Jefferson Lerma to Bournemouth, but have brought in highly rated Bosnian midfielder Sanjin Prcic to take his place. Or they’ve replaced departing goalkeeper Raul Fernandez with Aitor Fernandez. They had a tough start to their pre-season, suffering three consecutive defeats, but as the summer has progressed they have improved and have finished pre-season looking better and looking ready for the new season. One thing Levante will hope for as they embark on this new campaign if for fewer draws, as this is what threatened to send them down last season. They only lost 14 matches last year, which certainly isn’t relegation form, but they drew 13, the joint most draws of any team in the league. If they’re to stay up this year, they’ll plan to turn some of those one-point collections into three-point hauls.