Benidorm

The Palau d'Esports l'Illa de Benidorm holds 3,000 people. It is also known as the Pabellón Liliana Fernández Steiner, and it is where Benidorm built the run that took them from the Province of Alicante into the top flight.

That climb had a clear starting point: promotion to Liga ASOBAL in 2014-15, earned after winning the División de Honor Plata the year before. The club, founded in 1994, stayed in the top division for a decade. Pablo Simonet had put them there, scoring the winning goal in the semi-final. Weeks later they met Barcelona again in the Supercopa ASOBAL final and came away runners-up once more, 18-38. The Copa del Rey result carried a reward beyond the runners-up medal: a place in the 2020-21 EHF European League. Benidorm finished bottom of Liga ASOBAL and dropped back to the Plata division.

Carlos Grau , the left back, ran through most of that story as captain across several spells from 2014 to 2023.

Benidorm's fixtures with fellow Alicante sides, Fundación Agustinos Alicante and EON Horneo Alicante among them, are billed locally as the derbi alicantino.