LaLiga Hypermotion Matchday 5 preview: Eibar leading the way, Sabadell remain unbeaten and Real Sporting de Gijón host Eldense

What's up, lads? Matchday 5 and this league is already showing its true colours. Summary in two lines: Eibar are top after losing their first game, newly-promoted Sabadell are second and still haven't tasted defeat, there are nine teams packed into two points and down below there are already two sides sitting on zero after just four games. Eleven matches from Friday to Monday. Let's go.

📊 LaLiga Hypermotion heading into matchday 5

This is the real table, and it updates itself: the moment each weekend game finishes, the table below moves without you needing to refresh anything.

🗓️ Friday: Ceuta have more at stake than it looks

Burgos CF — AD Ceuta FC · 20:30, El Plantío

The matchday opens with the most comfortable side in the table against the one having the roughest ride. Burgos are on 5 points with one win and two draws — the kind of start that leaves you neither happy nor sad — and have almost their full squad available except Lizancos (meniscus) and Oier Luengo (fractured toe).

Opposite them, Ceuta and the stat that terrifies: four defeats, zero points, 1 goal for and 12 against. It's not bad luck, it's a bloodbath. And they arrive at El Plantío with six players out — Anuar, Lapeña, Koné, Teguia and Mamah injured, plus Albert Caparrós suspended for a straight red. For a newly-arrived team to struggle in Segunda B is just the way it goes; conceding three a game on average in September is another conversation altogether. If they don't get something tonight, the noise from the touchline is going to be deafening.

🗓️ Saturday: five games and Albacete fighting for their pride

FC Andorra — Real Sociedad B · 14:00

Andorra are the most entertaining and most self-destructive team in the league: 7 goals for and 7 against in four games, with Le Normand (out with a cruciate injury until February) and Gael Alonso sidelined for months. They won the first and have lost three on the bounce since. The Real Sociedad B side arrive on 5 points from 9 possible and a game in hand, unbeaten and keeping a low profile, missing long-term injured Ekain Orobengoa. Midday appetiser on Sunday perhaps, but this one looks like it'll have goals in it.

Cádiz — UD Las Palmas · 16:15

Big match by name and by urgency. Cádiz are the draw kings: three draws and a defeat, still without a win, with Tabatadze, Gocholeishvili and Obioma in the treatment room. And Las Palmas arrive tenth with 7 points… and with eight players missing, which is becoming routine: Recoba, Cedeño, Sergio Ruiz, Álex Suárez, Ale García, Marvin Park, Viti and Opoku stay on the island. Two squads built to go up, two starts that could cost you your job by mid-October.

Girona — CD Castellón · 18:30

The weekend's most contrasting style clash: attack versus defence. Girona are the league's top scorers with 9 goals; Castellón are the tightest at the back — 1 goal conceded in three games — and have a game in hand that, if they win it, puts them top of the virtual table. Girona are still without Portu (cruciate injury) and Jastin García is touch-and-go; Castellón are missing Brignani and Kostis. Montilivi will be a good test to see if those 9 goals make them a real team or just a mirage.

Granada — Albacete · 18:30

This one isn't about football anymore, it's about survival. Albacete are on zero: four games, four defeats, 2 goals for and 7 against, and to make matters worse they've got the busiest treatment room in LaLiga Hypermotion with seven names (Samu Obeng and Antonio Puertas with broken cruciates, Pepe Sánchez and San Bartolomé with hamstring issues, plus doubts over Munir, Rober González and Víctor Valverde). Granada, ninth with 7 points, come in off a defeat and have players back. Los Cármenes could be where Albacete completely fall apart… or where they start to actually exist.

Córdoba — Almería · 21:00

Andalusian derby at night at El Arcángel, which is always a winner of a plan. Córdoba are 19th with 3 points and among the most-scored-against teams (10 conceded) with five notable absentees — Adilson, Fomeyem, El Jebari, Jacobo Martí and Víctor Sánchez. Almería, twelfth, alternate between win and loss with no middle ground (WLWL) and get Thalys back after completing his four-game suspension, though Gui Guedes is still missing. And yes: Almería is the team that Cristiano Ronaldo owns 25% of since February. Segunda in 2026, folks.

🔴⚪ Sunday: El Molinón, Zorrilla and Sabadell's unbeaten run

Real Sporting de Gijón — CD Eldense · 14:00, El Molinón

And now for the uncomfortable bit, that's what we're here for. Sporting are the strangest team in the whole table: 7 points, eleventh, with 2 goals for and 2 against in four games. Two. Play-off form at the back, relegation form up front — only Oviedo (1) have scored less. With Larcamón's boys you know they won't kick lumps out of you, but you also know any dull afternoon ends up as a 0-0 that gets nobody going.

They arrive off a home defeat to Girona (0-2) and with three players missing: Andrés Ferrari (setback with a fibula fracture, long-term), Gaspar Campos (hamstring relapse, again) and Hugo Guillamón, who's still training apart from the group and hasn't got his season started. Opposite them, an Eldense side second-to-bottom on 2 points who haven't won yet (2 goals for, 6 against) and who leave Pau Cabanes behind in Elda.

On paper, three points. But look at that table again: Sporting are eleventh and a win drags them right into the mix at the top, because from 4th to 11th there's zero points between them. A Sunday afternoon at El Molinón, with the team needing to deliver and half of Spain watching because of the Messi thing. We have to win and we have to win scoring goals. PUXA. 🔴⚪

Real Valladolid — Real Oviedo · 16:15, Zorrilla

Two relegated First Division sides, sixteenth against fifteenth, and the atmosphere will be electric at Zorrilla. Oviedo belong to the club of impossible-to-work-out teams: 1 goal for and 1 against in four matchdays. They don't win, they don't lose, they don't score, they don't concede. They just exist.

And he arrives in Valladolid with the shortest injury list of the weekend: seven casualties through injury (Chaira, Brandon Domingues, Chris Ramos, Carlos Fernández, David Costas and Nacho Vidal, plus Aisar Ahmed as a doubt) and Aritz Aldasoro suspended for a straight red. Real Valladolid aren't in great shape either — 4 points, 2 goals scored and the infirmary with six names, including Guille Bueno with a cruciate and Dani Pérez out for six or seven weeks, plus Lachuer suspended. One of those matches decided by a set piece and someone else's bad luck.

RCD Mallorca — CE Sabadell FC · 18:30

My favourite match of the matchday, and that's despite Sporting not playing. Sabadell, freshly promoted, sit second with 8 points and nobody's beaten them yet: two wins and two draws, 4 goals for and just 2 against. A team that started the season struggling to score and now they're heading to Son Moix to go toe-to-toe with Mallorca, sixth, another side that's only conceded 2. Sabadell are missing Genar Fornés and Bonaldo; Mallorca have Jan Salas and Kalumba out long-term and Abdón Prats as a doubt. The team with the smallest budget in the division, fighting to stay near the top at a Primera ground.

CD Tenerife — CD Leganés · 21:00, Heliodoro

A cracking Sunday closer. Tenerife, eighth with 7 points in their return to professional football, host Leganés, third, unbeaten, with 8 points and just 1 goal conceded in the whole league — the most reliable team at the start alongside Sabadell. Leganés arrive with four absentees (Franquesa, Del Cura, Diawara and Tejero) and Tenerife only lose Jesús Álvarez. Heliodoro under the lights, with the home side in form and a promotion contender opposite: one of those you watch from start to finish.

🗓️ Monday: the leaders close at Balaídos

RC Celta Fortuna — SD Eibar · 20:30, Balaídos

The finale belongs to the leaders. Eibar lost the opening matchday and have won three straight since: 9 points, top spot, and one of those runs that in Segunda can turn your whole season around. But they're heading to Balaídos battered: Jair suspended for a straight red, García de Albéniz with an ankle problem, and Nolaskoain and Olaetxea long-term, plus Sergio Álvarez as a doubt. Five names out.

And Celta Fortuna are the reserve side nobody saw coming: fifth with 7 points, 7 goals scored and not a single confirmed absence — the only team of the 22 who arrive with a full squad. Monday night, Balaídos, cheeky reserve side against a wounded league leaders. Eyes peeled.

🧮 The matchday 5 reckoning

If you only take five things away, make them these:

• Eibar are the leaders with 9 points, and they're the only team to have won three matches.
• Nobody's beaten Sabadell or Leganés yet. Both unbeaten, both with 8 points, both with the most solid defences in the league.
• From 4th to 15th there's two points separating them. Twelve teams split by a single result. What happens this weekend shuffles the entire table.
• Albacete and Ceuta remain on zero with four defeats each, and on top of that they're the two teams with the most absentees this matchday (seven and six).
• Sporting and Oviedo are the two lowest scorers in the whole division — 2 and 1 goals in four matches — and neither has conceded more than two. Asturias are playing chess football and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

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