I haven't kept up with the news in Spain this year beyond La Liga. What teams in the lower leagues are being promoted, relegated, or on the verge of either of those? Thanks.
Looks like Numancia, Levante, and either Alavés or Sporting Gijon will go up to 1st division this year. Sporting has a long top flight history and their under 17s (Juveniles in Spain) just won the national championship. Alavés and Numancia have recent top flight experience and have maintained their good organization. Levante was only up once, in the 1960s. Would mean reviving a nice Valencia derby. From 2B there are playoffs, so winning your division (there are four, four from each go into playoffs, a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place team each from a different division face off in a mini-league of six games) is no assurance. Recently the teams from Andalusia, Murcia and Valencia regions have done well to get up to 2nd. Teams with recent top flight experiences like Lleida and Castellon have a chance. Atletico de Madrid and Madrid B will also be in the playoffs it seems. Right now the only B team in 2nd is Malaga B, a great advantage to the club as they can sign internationals and non-EU who cannot play in 2B, thus creating a fine set of reserves and give them excellent competition. Málaga B should stay in 2nd this year, wonder if it will pay off for them soon. From the 17 3rd division sides there are also playoffs to go to 2B. Meaning the system is just like from 2B to 2nd. It is much harder to get up than it is to be relegated. Below 3rd leagues are run by the regions (autonomous communities). I think most use direct promotion. My neighbourhood team in Barcelona, Poble Sec, just missed promotion to third last year on the last day of the season, blew a 2-goal lead to a direct rival. We play on dirt in front of maybe 250 fans.
Last year all four teams (Algeciras, Malaga B, Ciudad de Murcia and Cadiz, from Grupo IV from Segunda B (Andalucia, Extremadura and Murica region) were promoted to Segunda after winning their respective liguillas. This was the first time that 4 teams from the same grupo all won their respective liguillas! Saludos y viva er beti manque lopera! Pichi
Spain's revamped 3rd division is two groups of 20 teams. Champions of each group go up, second through fifth have promotion playoffs with two more going up. Bottom five in each group go down. This should be fun.
The Spanish system is confusing because of the naming. La Liga is first division. Segunda is second division. Primera RFEF is third division. Segunda RFEF is fourth division. Tercera is fifth division. Correct? Anyway, somewhere there is a heavy bottleneck against promotion. Tercera has something like 360 teams divided into 18 regional groups! Sounds like a Black Hole to me. Once you enter, you never go back up.