Horneo Alicante

Alicante went thirty-three years without a team in the top flight of Spanish handball, and Horneo Alicante ended that wait in 2025 by winning the División de Honor Plata, going up to the Liga Plenitude ASOBAL at the first attempt under head coach Fernando Latorre. The club had already shown it could win something: three years earlier it lifted the Copa AON Comunitat Valenciana, beating Elche in the final after twice losing that same final to TM Benidorm.

None of that looked likely from where the club started. It began life in 2017 as Club Balonmano Sporting Alicante, took the name Horneo Sporting Alicante once a local ice-cream company came on as sponsor, became Eón Horneo Alicante in 2022, and has traded under Eón Balonmano Alicante since 2024.

Ander Torriko captains the side and was its second-highest scorer in the promotion season. Around him the squad mixes Liga ASOBAL experience — Argentine internationals James Parker and Santiago Baronetto among them, alongside Swiss goalkeeper Flavio Wick and Portuguese international Fabio Teixeira — with academy signings pulled in from FC Barcelona's youth ranks and further afield, including an 18-year-old Spanish youth international arriving from Balonmano Gáldar and a 19-year-old Egyptian pivot.

In the second division there was no love lost with Ciudad Real's BM Caserío, though the two sides are far enough apart geographically that no one has bothered naming the rivalry.