A year ago, Espí was fielding offers to go out on loan to Segunda División. Now, at 21, he has completed a move that Real Madrid closed in a matter of days, activating the €25m release clause in his Levante contract to sign a forward who scored 11 goals and added two assists in just 1,300 minutes during a breakout 2025-26 campaign.
Levante knew the clause was never going to be enough to keep one of Spain's biggest clubs away once his form took off — remarkable given that, eleven months earlier, Espí had chosen to stay at a newly promoted side even though he knew regular minutes were far from guaranteed. It was Luís Castro's arrival as head coach that transformed both his role and the fortunes of a team that looked destined for relegation back in January.
Speaking to Radio MARCA's Marcador programme, agent Pep Serer detailed how quickly the deal came together and the emotion behind it.
"It's a source of pride for everything he's had to fight for," he said, recalling that Espí never took the easy route and chose to stay and earn his place at Levante even through difficult spells. "He's been through difficult situations, managed to find a place in the starting eleven and started scoring goals. I feel enormous pride in him and in everything he still has to do."
Although several Premier League clubs, along with sides in Italy and Portugal, had shown interest in recent weeks, Serer said Real Madrid's arrival settled the matter instantly.
"When Real Madrid appear there's no doubt. It's a very distinguished club, and yesterday they showed us spectacular warmth," he said. Serer added that Espí arrives at Valdebebas grounded and fully aware of the challenge ahead: "He knows exactly what his role is. He has enormous hunger, he knows his strengths and also his weaknesses. He wants to improve every day."
The agent also stressed the importance of Espí continuing his studies alongside football, describing academic development as valuable both personally and for decision-making on and off the pitch. Serer described a forward who is awkward for any defence to face: "He's a player who never stops fighting, who's going to attack every ball, and who can unlock tight games. He's going to bring a lot to Real Madrid."
Real Madrid first tried to sign Espí back in March 2024, when he was still a little-known youth forward, with an offer to bring him into the Castilla set-up.
"We didn't accept it because we could see he had enormous potential," recalled Felipe Miñambres, Levante's sporting director at the time. Two years on, the growth in his profile could not be starker.
Espí grew up in Tavernes de la Valldigna, a small town south of Valencia where the football pitch was visible from his bedroom window. Coach Javi Tur, who first spotted him at the age of six, remembers a boy unafraid of physical contact that other children his age typically avoided. His father, Juanjo, describes a son who has never stopped climbing: whenever local rivals Alavés matched Levante's interest during his development, Carlos chose to stay in Valencia anyway, determined — as he put it at the time — to "play against the best."
His uncle, Sergio Palomares, helped guide the physical transformation that turned a gangly teenager standing close to 1.90m into the powerful forward now on Real Madrid's books.
Espí made his Segunda División debut while still studying for his university degree in Sports Science, and scored his first professional goal as a virtual unknown before the "Calero, saca Espí" chants from Levante's crowd turned into the breakout campaign that has now taken him to the Bernabéu.
He is expected to be involved in Real Madrid's squad for their friendly against Fiorentina, with his contract running for five seasons through to 2031.