Ikechukwu Uche and Denis Cheryshev's second-half goals have handed Villarreal a win in their opening La Liga fixture as they overcame Levante 2-0 away from home this evening.
The visitors made the quickest start and they almost went ahead inside two minutes when Giovani dos Santos latched on to Antonio Rukavina's cross, only to see his header thump back off the crossbar.
Real dominated the opening period and Cani nearly made all the difference as he teed up Dos Santos with a perfect cross, but the striker couldn't make use of it as he dragged his shot wide.
The away side were wasteful yet again right on the stroke of half time, this time as Dos Santos looked to provide for Bruno, who could only head straight at the keeper from point-blank range.
Victor looked to carve out a meaningful opportunity for Levante and his long-range effort was smartly saved by Sergio Asenjo down low.
It looked as though Villarreal would come to rue their missed chances, but Uche had other ideas when he finished adroitly to give his side the lead in the 56th minute.
The visiting team settled the victory with only a few minutes left to play when Moi Gomez found Cheryshev, who converted with a comfortable tap-in from a few yards out to leave the final score at 2-0.
Christopher Dodd
