Levante must win more often than their rivals if they want to reach the points they need before the end of the season, Luís Castro said on the eve of Monday’s meeting with Getafe at the Ciutat de València. The Levante coach said there are 24 points left to play for and called the game three more points in a crucial stretch.
Castro’s assessment was shaped by what he sees across the table. Getafe, he said, have won four of their last five matches and have lost only two of their last ten, with both defeats coming in matches in which they were reduced to 10 men. That, he said, makes them one of the best teams in the league in results since he arrived at Levante, and a side that will force his players to stay fully switched on.
Monday’s match comes with Levante still locked in a battle to stay in LaLiga, and Castro did not hide the scale of the task. He said the team must focus on its own game, because other sides will win and lose along the way, but Levante will need to collect more victories than the teams around them to do enough. At home, he added, the squad tends to raise its level, helped by supporters in the stands and by the intensity he believes the side already shows in its own ground.
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That home edge, however, is only part of the picture. Castro said Levante are one of the LaLiga teams with the most intensity at home, and that the crowd can give the players extra energy in matches they have often managed to keep alive until the final whistle. He said the group will go into Monday’s game with only two injury absences, Brugué and Elgezabal, leaving him with a nearly full squad for a match he described as important against a well-organized opponent.
The Levante coach said Getafe’s strengths are clear in the numbers and in the way they manage games, noting that they do not concede many chances and can speed the match up or slow it down when needed. He said the key will be to take away as much of their quality as possible and create damage in the moments that open up. Castro also used the same briefing to praise LaLiga’s retro week initiative, saying he likes campaigns that help promote Spanish football more and arguing that there should be greater noise around the league when Spanish sides beat major European clubs.
For Levante, the equation is simple and unforgiving. With only 24 points still available, every home match carries extra weight, and Monday’s test against one of the league’s form teams leaves little room for error.
