Villarreal CF 3-1 Levante UD: Primera Division Match Report, 20 September 2026

Level at the interval, two goals clear by the finish. Villarreal CF 3-1 Levante UD, 1-1 at half-time, which makes the second half a 2-0 and the only period of the afternoon either side controlled.

The table had the two clubs almost on top of each other: Villarreal fifteenth on five points from six matches, Levante sixteenth on five from five, separated by a single goal of difference. That is a strange place to find Villarreal, who finished third last season on seventy-two points, and a fairly normal one for Levante, who were eighteenth on forty-two. Six matches in, the division's third-placed side from May had taken five points from a possible eighteen.

Villarreal's five points had come from two draws — 2-2 at Real Racing Club de Santander and 2-2 at Club Atlético de Madrid — then three defeats, 1-0 at Deportivo Alavés, 2-3 at home to RC Deportivo La Coruña and 1-2 at home to Real Betis Balompié. The first win had arrived only three days before this, 3-1 at Málaga CF, so a second in the same week was the first sign of a direction.

Levante had been the more interesting side to that point without being the better one: beaten 3-0 at RCD Espanyol in August, then a goalless draw at CA Osasuna, then a 5-2 win over Real Betis that stands as one of the stranger results of the opening month, then another 0-0 at Málaga and a 2-4 home defeat by FC Barcelona. Five points from five with seven scored and nine conceded, and a habit of either scoring in bulk or not at all.

The fixture's recent history favoured the home side. Villarreal had won the only two previous meetings on record, 5-1 at this ground in May and 1-0 at Levante in February. This made it three.

The site published nothing in advance of this match — the September gap in our coverage starts here — so there is no pre-match position to revisit, only the result and what followed it.

Villarreal moved to eight points from seven, a second win in three days and their first back-to-back victories of the season. It did not become a run: they lost 1-0 at Real Madrid CF on 10 October and drew 0-0 at home with Elche CF a week later, which left them on nine points from nine and eleventh. The honest reading of this result, four weeks on, is that it was the better half of a season that has been alternating rather than building.

Levante stayed on five points from six and their goal difference slipped to minus four. They did not lose again inside the window: a 3-3 draw at home with Sevilla FC on 12 October and a 1-1 at RC Deportivo La Coruña on 16 October took them to seven points from eight. Two draws in a row from a side that had looked capable of anything in either direction is a form of progress, though seven points from eight is still below the rate that kept them up last season: forty-two points from thirty-eight matches, eighteenth place, and the margin they are working with again.