La Liga 2026-27 three promoted clubs, three survival plans

La Liga 2026-27 kicks off on Saturday 15 August with three newcomers who share a division and very little else. Deportivo La Coruña, Racing Santander and Málaga have all gone up at the same time, yet each has chosen a radically different way of getting ready for what is coming. One has spent twenty-four million euros. Another has decided not to spend a cent until it sells. And the third cannot even decide for itself, because every move it makes needs the approval of a judge. Three budgets, three philosophies and one shared question: how many of the three will still be here in a year.

Deportivo bet twenty-four million on staying up

Depor have been the most aggressive of the promoted sides in the market. As of 28 July, the club from A Coruña had spent around twenty-four million euros on signings and had taken in only five hundred thousand, the fee Valladolid paid for Luis Chacón. The net outlay, close to twenty-three and a half million, puts them among the promoted clubs who have invested most in the top flight so far this century. Antonio Hidalgo, in charge since July 2025 and under contract until 2027, has not been handed a squad built on continuity. He has been handed a brand new one.

• Leo Román, the goalkeeper signed from Mallorca, the most expensive deal of the summer at Riazor
• Jonathan Asp Jensen, a 20-year-old Danish midfielder who belonged to Bayern Munich
• Bright Ede, an attacking reinforcement the club paid a top-level fee for
• Lorenzo Amatucci, two and a half million paid to Fiorentina to strengthen the middle of the pitch
• Teun Gijselhart, one million invested in Dutch side De Graafschap
• Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who arrived from Olympique de Marseille on 17 July and signed for two seasons

Aubameyang is the signing that has grabbed the most headlines, and not only because of the name: the Gabonese striker turned 37 in June and put pen to paper until 2028, an unusual bet for a side that needs points from August onwards. But the most significant piece of business of Deportivo's summer was not an arrival, it was someone staying. Yeremay Hernández renewed in June 2025 until 2030 and his release clause, previously set at forty million, shot up automatically to one hundred and forty with promotion to the top flight. It is the highest in the club's 118-year history. Sporting CP have pushed for him repeatedly and Deportivo have not moved an inch: either somebody pays the clause, or Yeremay plays at Riazor.

"Deportivo have not signed to survive. They have signed as if taking survival for granted were cheaper than fighting for it in January."

Racing wait: sell first, sign afterwards

In Santander the reading is exactly the opposite. Racing are back in the top flight fourteen years on and have closed just three additions, all of them either free of any transfer fee or through a route already mapped out. Sergio Canales came back on a free from Monterrey in Mexico, returning home sixteen years after he left. Asier Villalibre stayed for good once the club took up the purchase option with Alavés, backed by the sixteen goals and three assists he produced during the loan spell that ended in promotion, and he has committed his future until 2029. Facundo González, the Uruguayan centre-back who arrived on loan from Juventus, also stayed permanently and on a contract running to the same date. To those three you can add the return of Yeray Cabanzón after his loan at Andorra.

That is thin for a squad that needs somewhere in the region of eight or nine reinforcements, and the reason is stated openly. Sebastián Ceria, the club's majority shareholder, put the budget for the season at around sixty million euros, but made that figure conditional on sales: there are clubs very interested in Racing players and the sporting department has decided the income should land before the spending does. President Manuel Higuera and sporting director Mikel Martija are behind the plan, and José Alberto López, whose deal now runs to 2028, is the coach who will have to start the season with a half-built squad if the market drags. The window does not shut until 1 September, so Racing may play the opening rounds as a very different team from the one they end up being.

Málaga chose their supporters over the 2030 World Cup

The Málaga case is not explained by money but by the courts. The club remains under judicial administration, with José María Muñoz at the helm, and that means every financial move needs prior authorisation. Sporting director Loren Juarros has worked inside that straitjacket: free agents, loans and minimal fees. That is the route that has brought in Fernando Calero, Juan Cruz and José Salinas, plus the return of Carlos Dotor, with the intention of closing between six and nine additions before deadline day. Juanfran Funes stays in the dugout. Born in Loja in 1983, he took the team over in November 2025, won promotion in his first half-season and now faces his very first season as a coach at the elite level of professional football.

But Málaga's big story this summer was played out away from the pitch. The plan to redevelop La Rosaleda for the 2030 World Cup, an agreement worth 257 million euros to be split equally between the Ayuntamiento, the Diputación and the Junta de Andalucía, would have forced the team to move to the Estadio de Atletismo Ciudad de Málaga while the work went on. The problem was capacity. The figure announced at the outset, 26,000 spectators, was later cut to 12,500, less than half the number of season-ticket holders the club has. On 12 July 2026, mayor Francisco de la Torre confirmed that Málaga were withdrawing as a 2030 World Cup host city, after meeting the club, the supporters clubs and the singing section. The reason, put bluntly, was that the project represented a risk for the club and a problem for the fans.

• La Rosaleda holds around 30,000 and Málaga have more than 26,000 season-ticket holders
• The Estadio de Atletismo has 7,562 seats today and its planned expansion stopped at 12,500
• The agreement for the new Rosaleda came to 257 million across the three administrations
• The withdrawal as a host city was announced on 12 July 2026, a month before La Liga started
• The mayor made clear there will still be a new stadium, even if it is no longer for the World Cup

The upshot is that Málaga have won over their own people and lost a World Cup. With FIFA's deadline gone, so is the urgency that made starting the work this summer unavoidable, and with it the forced move. What remains open is the future: where and when the stadium the club needs actually gets built, a matter on which the institutions and the judicial administration have yet to settle on a common position.

Three answers to the same question

What makes this trio interesting is not that they are different, but that their strategies are almost mutually incompatible. Deportivo have decided that survival is bought in July and have mortgaged the season's financial room to get it. Racing have decided that buying expensively before selling is the quickest way to repeat the mistakes of other promoted sides, and would rather arrive late in the market with real money. Málaga have decided none of this, because they cannot: their ceiling is set by a court, and their summer has gone on defending where they are going to play rather than thinking about who they will play with.

The opening matchday runs from 15 to 27 August, stretched out by the four fixtures postponed after the 2026 World Cup, and from there it starts to resolve itself. It is worth remembering that La Liga's official salary limits for 2026-27 are not published until September, so the definitive financial portrait of the three does not exist yet. Nor has the market shut: until 1 September, any of these three squads can change face.

Simulate La Liga 2026-27 on Fut Simulator

There is no need to wait until May to find out how this ends. On Fut Simulator you can build your own La Liga 2026-27 with all twenty teams and see whether Deportivo get a return on their twenty-four million, whether waiting pays off for Racing or whether Málaga can hold on with what they have. It is free, it runs in your browser and there is no sign-up.

• Enter the results matchday by matchday and watch the relegation zone move in real time
• Simulate individual matches with the AI or settle a whole matchday in one go
• Adjust the line-ups before every fixture
• Compare your champion with those of the Premier League, Serie A or the Bundesliga

"Three promoted clubs, three plans and only one certainty: at least one of them got it wrong. Simulate the season and work out which before the calendar does."