Joaquín Navarro Jiménez, known as Ximo Navarro, was born on 23 January 1990 in Guadahortuna, in the province of Granada, and came through the RCD Mallorca academy. He is a defender who plays mostly at right-back. He has played in the Spanish top flight and second division for Mallorca, Almería, Las Palmas and Alavés, spent a season in the Dutch Eredivisie with Fortuna Sittard, and has played for Deportivo de La Coruña since 2023.
Youth career at Mallorca
He joined Mallorca’s youth ranks and was promoted to the reserve side, then in the Segunda División B, in 2009. He spent two seasons with Mallorca B, from 2009 to 2011, making 58 league appearances and scoring once. In 2010 he received his first call-up to the Spain under-21 squad, then managed by Juan Ramón López Caro.
Loans at Recreativo and Córdoba
To gain experience in professional football, Mallorca loaned him to Recreativo de Huelva in the summer of 2011. He made his official debut in the Spanish second division on 27 August 2011, in a 1-0 away defeat to Deportivo de La Coruña, the club he would join twelve years later. He played 12 league games for Recreativo. On 26 January 2012 he switched to a loan at Córdoba until the end of the 2011-12 season, making 17 league appearances there plus two more in the promotion play-offs.
Top-flight debut and Mallorca years
He returned to Mallorca in the summer of 2012 and stayed with the first team. He made his La Liga debut on 18 August 2012, starting in a 2-1 home win over Espanyol at Son Moix. He made 16 league appearances in 2012-13 and became a regular starter, although the team were relegated at the end of the season. He stayed on for the 2013-14 campaign in the second division and finished his time with Mallorca’s first team on 54 league appearances.
Almería, Las Palmas and Alavés
On 12 June 2014 he signed a three-year contract with UD Almería, taking him back to the top flight. He stayed on after the club’s relegation in 2015 and, over three years there, played 89 league games and scored 3 goals. In June 2017 he joined UD Las Palmas on a free transfer, signing a three-year deal. He made 31 league appearances in the 2017-18 season, which ended with the Canary Islands side going down.
In July 2018 he terminated his contract with Las Palmas and signed for Deportivo Alavés. Vitoria brought his longest spell in La Liga: four seasons, from 2018 to 2022, with 103 league appearances and 3 goals. He left in June 2022, when his contract ran out, just after Alavés had been relegated.
A season in the Netherlands
After a few months without a club, he signed for Fortuna Sittard in September 2022. He made his Eredivisie debut on 2 October 2022, playing the full ninety minutes of a 2-0 win over Volendam. He made 15 league appearances for the Limburg side in 2022-23, his only experience outside Spain.
Deportivo de La Coruña
On 1 August 2023 he joined Deportivo, who were then in the third-tier Primera Federación. In his first season at Riazor the team won Group 1 and sealed promotion to the second division on 12 May 2024, beating Barcelona Atlètic 1-0 in front of more than 31,000 fans. Deportivo spent two seasons in the second tier. In 2025-26 they finished second on 77 points and secured automatic promotion to La Liga on 24 May 2026 with a 2-0 win away to Real Valladolid on the penultimate matchday, eight years after their last relegation.
Deportivo A Coruña