Castellón stun Montilivi to go top, Albacete get off the mark and Thalys returns with a goal: Matchday 5 roundup

What's up, folks? Sunday morning, coffee in hand and Sporting playing at two o'clock. Before the ball rolls at El Molinón, it's worth knowing what's gone down out there, because Friday and Saturday of this matchday 5 have turned the table on its head: new leaders, Albacete finally got on the board, Ceuta took another hit and absolute chaos at Montilivi. Six matches, and not a dull one among them.

🥇 Castellón storm Montilivi and go top

Girona 1-2 Castellón, and what a match. Girona went ahead in minute 7 with Holmes Zamorano and it looked like the league's highest scorers were going to steamroll the stingiest defence. But in the 52nd minute Abel Ruiz got a straight red and the whole game turned on its head: Agustín Sienra levelled in the 81st and Varo sealed it 1-2 in the 86th. Ten minutes to knock over a team that hadn't lost at home in four matchdays, in front of 11,182 people.

💪 Albacete finally get points (and it's the guy who was in doubt)

Granada 1-1 Albacete. The visitors from La Mancha arrived at Los Cármenes with zero points, four defeats and seven injuries — the most crowded medical bay in the category — looking like lambs to the slaughter. Granada went ahead in the 50th with Owen Chukwuemeka and that looked game over.

Not so fast. In the 81st minute, penalty and buried: Higinio Marín, fresh out of ankle surgery and a doubt right up until kick-off, made it 1-1 and handed Albacete their first point of the season. Pay attention to this detail, because it's got some edge to it: the lad who saves the team is the one who was only half-fit. That's Segunda football for you.

😔 Ceuta score, take the lead… and lose again

Burgos 3-1 Ceuta. The cruelest result of the matchday. Ceuta went ahead in the 14th minute with Carlos Hernández — his second goal of the league — and got to dream for a bit. It lasted six minutes: Alberto Dadie levelled in the 20th, Jon Karrikaburu made it 2-1 straight after the interval (48') and in the 81st came an own goal from Redru to finish the job off.

Five matchdays, five defeats, zero points, 2 goals for and 15 against. With six injuries on top of it all, Ceuta aren't just in the relegation zone: they're starting to look like they belong in a different league altogether. Burgos, meanwhile, move up to 8 points without breaking a sweat.

⚽ Thalys back from suspension and scores in the derby

Córdoba 0-2 Almería at El Arcángel, with 15,529 fans, the best attendance of the weekend. An Andalusian evening derby, the kind that never disappoints. Brian Cipenga opened the scoring in the 52nd and Thalys sealed it in the 70th — the same Thalys who'd just finished serving a four-match ban and was back this matchday. Returning and scoring in a derby: that's knowing when to pick your moment. Quim Junyent saw red late on when the deal was already done.

Almería go up to 9 points and Córdoba stay on 3 with 12 goals conceded, in a zone they don't want to be. And a note for the record books: Almería is the club of which Cristiano Ronaldo owns 25%. Segunda football in 2026, ladies and gentlemen.

🏝️ Las Palmas win in Cádiz with eight out

Cádiz 0-1 Las Palmas, goal from Enrique Clemente in the 60th. And the credit's massive, because the islanders travelled with eight injured players — Recoba, Cedeño, Sergio Ruiz, Álex Suárez, Ale García, Marvin Park, Viti and Opoku — and still came away with three points from a notoriously tricky away ground. They move to 10 points, up there.

Cádiz, on the other hand, still have the same old problem: five matchdays and still haven't won (three draws and two defeats). When a team with that kind of budget gets stuck in September, the dugout starts making funny noises.

🔵 Real Sociedad's B team thrash Andorra

Andorra 1-3 Real Sociedad B, and it was done before half-time: Daniel Díaz (11'), Lander Astiazarán (34') and Iñaki Rupérez (41') had it wrapped up 0-3 in forty minutes. Lautaro De León made it respectable in the 70th. The txuri-urdin reserves sit on 8 points from four matches without a loss yet, and Andorra are on four straight defeats after winning on matchday one: 8 goals for and 10 against, the wildest team in the league.

📊 Here's the table right now

This standings table updates itself: when the Sunday matches finish and Monday's Celta Fortuna-Eibar game wraps up, these rows shuffle without you needing to refresh anything.

🔴⚪ And now for our lot: what's at stake for Sporting

I break all this down in today's preview show, with the analysis of Eldense, the injury list and what I expect from Larcamón's eleven:

With these six results, the outlook for Sporting changes quite a bit. Most of the teams up there have picked up points — Castellón, Las Palmas, Almería, Burgos, Real Sociedad B and Granada all did —, so Larcamón's team falls behind if they don't win. You can't just say "we're one point off everything anymore": this afternoon, winning means staying in the fight and not winning means you start looking downwards.

Up against us, an Eldense with a caretaker boss — Josep Ferrando, after the club sacked Claudio Barragán on 6 September — who haven't won yet and who arrive wrapped up in the noise of the possible Leo Messi takeover, a deal that to this day remains unsigned. And the uncomfortable stat for us: since LaLiga fixed matches at 14:00, Sporting have gone 14 without a win in that time slot (9 defeats and 5 draws). Today, at 14:00. Right then, time to break streaks. PUXA. 🔴⚪

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