Espanyol already knows its way in the Second Division after the draw for the 2023-24 season calendar held this Wednesday at the Federation headquarters, in the Ciudad del Fútbol de Las Rozas. The blue and white club will begin to fight to return to the First Division at the Carlos Belmonte against Albacete, which was already their first rival in their previous relegation to the silver category.
The league competition will begin the second week of August, from the 13th, and matchday 42, the last date of the regular season, will be held on Sunday, May 26. By then the two teams that have achieved the first two places will be known, therefore direct promotion, and between June 9 and 23 the playoff will begin to decide the third team that rises to the Santander League.
Espanyol, the club with the most pedigree in the category and with the largest budget of the 22 that make up the League, was relegated to Second along with Elche and Valladolid. Luis García’s team, great favorites to be promoted as champions, will begin the season against an Albacete team that finished in sixth position last season and fell in the semifinals of the promotion playoff against Levante.
The team from La Mancha, trained by Rubén Albés, will be the first stone in the path of a Espanyol team that already knows what it is to be promoted just one year after being relegated. The parakeet team finished first in the Second Division of the 2020-21 season and managed to seal their return to the elite of Spanish football with four days to go.
On this occasion, Espanyol will face teams with a recent past in the First Division, such as Levante (matchdays 5 and 25), Valladolid (matchdays 11 and 39), Eibar (matchdays 14 and 28), Huesca ( matchdays 15 and 29) and Elche (matchdays 16 and 37), and also against historic players such as Sporting de Gijón (matchdays 13 and 38), Oviedo (matchdays 18 and 40), Zaragoza (matchdays 19 and 31) and the Racing de Santander (day 2 and 26).
However, two of the most anticipated matches will be those that pit Espanyol against Gerard Piqué’s Andorra. The blue and whites will visit the Principality on the weekend of December 17, on matchday 20, and they will receive the Andorran team on April 19, 20, 21 or 22, on matchday 36. “Next year I will be in the stadium box de Cornellà”, recently warned the president of Andorra, one of those who generates the most animosity among the parakeet fans due to his past as a Barça player.
