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The first leg finished in a goalless draw, and the second looked to be heading in a similar direction until Chupete broke the deadlock in the 65th minute to put Malaga 1-0 up, sparking a frantic last half an hour at UD Almeria Stadum.

Just six minutes after Chupete's opener, David Larrubia came up with a sumptous finish to curl home a second for the visitors to cap a swift counter-attacking move, sending the travelling Malaga fans into delirium.

But those celebrations were muted somewhat just four minutes after that when a composed finish from Leo Baptistao in front of goal brought the hosts back into the match.

The addition of 10 minutes of stoppage-time also had Malaga fans biting their nails a little longer than they'd hoped.

Two red cards came in that period of added time, the first for Almeria's Thalys, who was shown a straight red after a melee at the corner flag in the 96th minute in which he threw punches.

The numbers were evened up three minutes later when Aaron Ochoa received a second yellow card, reducing Malaga also to 10 men.

Almeria pushed on for an equaliser, but lacked the power or precision to find one, and Malaga ultimately ran out a deserved victor, sealing an astonishing rise back to LaLiga for 2026-2027.

Kick-off for the match had to be delayed by 30 minutes after Malaga's team bus was pelted with projectiles on its way to the stadium, smashing several windows, but the players exacted the sweetest revenge by winning the match on the field.

After being relegated from the top flight in 2018, Malaga dropped down as far as the third tier in Spain before a club rebuild got it back on track, culminating in this promotion play-off win.

The club joins Racing and Deportivo La Coruna as the trio of promoted clubs from LaLiga 2, with matches against the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid now on their calendars for the upcoming season.