Levante goes for 8th win, Villarreal eyes 2nd win

Posted Friday, October 28, 2011 by YAHOO Sport

MADRID (AP)—Surprise pacesetter Levante can remain top of the Spanish league with an eighth straight victory this weekend, while Villarreal is desperate to pick up just its second win this season ahead of a must-win Champions League match against English leader Manchester City.

Levante travels to Osasuna on Sunday, while second-place Real Madrid is at Real Sociedad on Saturday when third-place Barcelona hosts Mallorca.

Levante’s improbable early season run continued Wednesday when Ruben Suarez scored a stoppage-time winner against Sociedad.

The Valencia-based club leads with 23 points from nine games, Madrid has 22 and defending champion Barcelona 21 points. Valencia is next with 18 points and Sevilla has 17.

“There’s nothing casual about our position as leader, the work the club has done over the last four years has been impressive,” Suarez said. “If you do things well at every level, then things turn out well. Of course, I hope this lasts because it’s nice that everyone is talking about Levante.”

Few are talking about Villarreal in a positive light after its terrible start to the season, which has placed coach Juan Carlos Garrido under pressure.

Villarreal has won only one of nine league matches ahead of its home game against Rayo Vallecano, and is without top-choice striker Giuseppe Rossi, who is sidelined for six months after knee surgery. Brazil striker Nilmar is also recovering from knee surgery.

Villarreal seems to have never recovered from the season opening 5-0 loss at Barcelona as well as the exit of influential midfielder Santi Cazorla to Malaga.

“We started off on the wrong foot and now we’re trying to get back into the same groove we were in last year but it’s going to take time,” Rossi said after a 3-0 loss at Madrid on Wednesday. “We’re trying to take it on the chin and move on, the results aren’t what we expected.

“We had a tough preseason because we had players coming and going. But now we’re in October and we’ve played 14 matches and we can’t use that as an excuse.”

Villarreal has lost all three Champions League games which makes Wednesday’s match against City vital for it to have any chance of reaching the knockout stages of the European competition, or even to finish third in its group and progress to the Europa League.

While Villarreal president Fernando Roig has publicly backed Garrido, time is not on the coach’s side with the club 18th and in the relegation zone.

“We have to improve not just for him but for the team,” midfielder Jonathan De Guzman said. “Every game we should step it up. We’re not a small team, we should be getting results with the players we have.”

Barcelona can count on the return of centerbacks Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique, while Lionel Messi will be looking to end a three-game scoreless run.

Barca coach Pep Guardiola was forced to defend Messi’s form despite the Argentina forward being the favorite to win a third straight FIFA World Player of the Year award.

“Nothing we’ve accomplished or that we will accomplish would be possible without him,” Guardiola said. “I don’t think, historically speaking, there has been a player like him, who has been available everyday or every three days over four years to be accomplishing what he is. Finding a player as consistent as that over four years is impossible.”

Guardiola said Chile striker Alexis Sanchez could return for the next league game at Athletic Bilbao, but the Spanish champions first had to rediscover their best form after squeaking out a 1-0 win at last-place Granada.

Madrid is expecting midfielder Nuri Sahin to return shortly, which would bolster a team that has won seven straight overall by a combined score of 28-3. There has been little criticism of coach Jose Mourinho’s tactics so far this season with Madrid averaging more than three goals per game compared to 0.667 surrendered.

Kaka has also hit form for perhaps the first time since joining the club, earning a recall to the Brazil team for the first time in 18 months.

Madrid striker Karim Benzema was slightly more skeptical of Levante’s possibilities of maintaining their early season form with another 28 games to be played.

“Let’s see if they last for the whole season,” the France striker said.

In other games this weekend, it’s: Valencia vs. Getafe; Sporting Gijon vs. Bilbao; Racing Santander vs. Real Betis; Atletico Madrid vs. Zaragoza; Malaga vs. Espanyol; and Sevilla vs. Granada.