Racing Santander came back to Primera after 14 years away and did it with a surprise of its own: Sergio Martínez was named in José Alberto's starting XI for the first top-flight match of his career. Villarreal arrived for the Sunday 17:00 kickoff at El Sardinero with a familiar core, a sold-out crowd waiting and Racing wearing the champion-of-Segunda patch for the season that brought them back.
For Racing, the match was more than an opener. It was the first time the club had stepped into Primera again since a 21/22 spell in Primera Federación, after a run that also included a Copa del Rey withdrawal over unpaid wages. That context made the lineup matter, because José Alberto did not just lean on experience: he handed Agirrezabala, Mantilla, Ramón, Pedro Felipe, Salinas, Puerta, Sergio Martínez, Andrés, Canales, Vicente and Villalibre the club's first official top-flight starting role of the campaign, with Martínez the one most clearly carrying the weight of a debut.
Villarreal brought a different kind of continuity. Íñigo Pérez's first official XI kept Luiz Júnior, Mouriño, Foyth, Veiga, Romero, Pépé, Comesaña, Gueye, Moleiro, Ayoze and Mikautadze on the sheet, while Gerard Moreno was left on the bench despite his status as the attack's most established voice when fit. The timing only sharpened the contrast: in the last hours before the match, Villarreal lifted Mikautadze's release clause from 60 million to 75 million, a reminder that one side was stepping back into Primera while the other was still trying to protect the value of a squad built to compete at the top.
The unanswered question is no longer whether Racing belongs in Primera on paper. It is whether a promoted side that spent 14 years waiting for this night can turn the noise at El Sardinero into points when the season starts asking harder questions.
