{"id":16151,"date":"2026-05-03T10:55:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/16151\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T10:55:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:55:33","slug":"villarreal-cruise-past-levante-to-close-gap-on-real-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/16151\/","title":{"rendered":"Villarreal Cruise Past Levante to Close Gap on Real Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"pimc\"><img decoding=\"async\" itemprop=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/villarreal.jpg\" alt=\"Villarreal - Levante 5:1\" title=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Villarreal delivered a commanding performance on home soil, thrashing Levante 5\u20131 in a one-sided La Liga encounter. The side led by Marcelino Toral showed both attacking flair and composure, dismantling their struggling opponents with ease.<\/p>\n<p>The standout performer of the night was Georges Mikautadze, who netted a clinical brace to underline his growing influence in the squad. Additional goals from Alberto Moleiro, Tajon Buchanan, and Nicolas P\u00e9p\u00e9 capped off an emphatic victory that thrilled the home crowd.<\/p>\n<p>This result solidifies Villarreal&#8217;s position in third place, effectively securing their spot in the UEFA Champions League, and also keeps them within six points distance of Real Madrid.<\/p>\n<p>2025-26, Spain &#8211; La Liga<\/p>\n<p>Villarreal &#8211; Levante 5:1 (1:0)<br \/>Goals: Mikautadze, 38 (1:0); Espi, 51 (1:1); Moleiro, 62 (2:1); Mikautadze, 68 (3:1); Buchanan T., 87 (4:1); P\u00e9p\u00e9 N., 90 (5:1)<\/p>\n<p>Villarreal: Tenas; Freeman; Navarro (Kambwala, 81); Veiga; Pedraza A. (Cardona S., 73); Dani Parejo (Partey T., 74); Comesa\u00f1a; Moleiro; Gerard Moreno (Buchanan T., 84); Mikautadze (Perez A., 74); P\u00e9p\u00e9 N.<br \/>Substitution: Cardona S. (from 73); Partey T. (from 74); Perez A. (from 74); Kambwala (from 81); Buchanan T. (from 84)<br \/>Bench: J\u00fanior L.; Costa Lo.; Mar\u00edn Ra.; Mourino; Gueye P.A.; Alfon; Oluwaseyi<br \/>Yellow Cards: Dani Parejo 45; Veiga 55; Partey T. 88<\/p>\n<p>Levante: Ryan M.; Moreno M-s; Matturro; Pampin; Toljan; Arriaga (Raghouber, 68); Olasagasti; Mart\u00ednez P.A. (Brugue, 77); Alvarez C. (Losada, 30); Romero I. (Tunde K., 46; Eyong, 68); Espi<br \/>Substitution: Losada (from 30); Tunde K. (from 46 till 68); Raghouber (from 68); Eyong (from 68); Brugue (from 77)<br \/>Bench: Campos; Garc\u00eda V.; Sanchez M.; P\u00e9rez N.; Rey O.; Abed Tai; Morales J.<br \/>Yellow Cards: Arriaga 45<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Villarreal delivered a commanding performance on home soil, thrashing Levante 5\u20131 in a one-sided La Liga encounter. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[313,301,1148,95,1147],"class_list":{"0":"post-16151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-valencia","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-la-liga","10":"tag-levante","11":"tag-valencia","12":"tag-villarreal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}