Luís Castro has spoken to the club's media to reflect on the season since his arrival on the Levante UD bench. A campaign in which the team has showcased its granota identity and achieved the goal of staying in the league.

In his early days as Levante's coach, the manager admitted that before joining the club, he took an interest in its history and idiosyncrasies, factors that influenced his decision to accept Levante UD's proposal as he felt aligned with the values of the organization. However, despite the prior references he had, he admits that reality exceeded his expectations. “I have been positively surprised; it has been more intense than I thought. The home matches have been very intense. The fans and the stadium have an incredible atmosphere. Also, day-to-day life, on the streets, when I go out. I don’t go out much, but when I come to the city, you can feel a strong sense of Levante spirit,” he explains.

The Portuguese coach encountered a locker room that was emotionally affected upon his arrival, as they were not seeing the results of their hard work. The coach acknowledges that he restored the team's confidence “day by day, working, showing them that they have quality and the ability because they are good. I believed they were good and that they had the ability. It’s easier to convey something when you believe it’s true, and day by day, we kept working and proving things. They kept evolving and believing in themselves. From there, things became normal.”

The involvement of players in decision-making is one of the hallmarks of his working methodology. Castro considers it essential for players to contribute their perspective because, after all, “they are the ones who are going to play.” “If they don’t believe in what we’re doing, if they are forced to do it because I say they have to, if they don’t understand it, if they’re not on board with what we’re doing… They won’t do it at one hundred percent. We discuss, we talk, we look, we do exercises to see if it’s better on the right or the left, we provide solutions, but they also provide them, and we combine, between our staff and them, the things that are most important to do. They want the same as we do; they want to win, the best for the club, and it’s normal for them to participate in everything we have to do,” he assures.

Throughout the season, the coach has repeatedly highlighted the commitment and involvement of a squad that has shown great willingness to help the team achieve its goal. For this reason, the coach acknowledges that, “even if we hadn’t achieved the goal, I would have been proud of this squad. I told them that what we did was very significant, but if in the end, we didn’t achieve it by one point or something like that, the pride would have been the same because there’s one thing I promised when I arrived: that the players would give their all because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t play. It has been easy because everyone was fully committed, giving their all. We changed players, and the team kept playing well, kept earning points. Players who were undisputed starters before I came got injured, and others stepped up and did the job. All our players have contributed, and pride is the right word to define what I have experienced here with them.”

As for the 12th player, the fans, the coach believes they played a “very important” role in achieving the goal. “You look at the matches we had at home; in the last seven games, we only had one draw while playing with ten men and in the last minute. Playing with ten, it wasn’t easy for the other team to get the draw. We made comebacks, games where we were winning 2-0, went into halftime at 2-2, and played the second half with the same winning mentality,” he points out. “If we had played all the matches at home, I think we could have made it to Europe,” he adds with a smile.

The granota coach hopes this year will be remembered as a season “in which the granota family achieved the goal together. A season where we showed a lot of heart and granota soul and, once again, demonstrated our identity.”