Cheryshev returns as Villarreal defeat Adelaide United 3-2

All Goals Adelaide United 2:3. Villarreal 29... by bekimlorini

Villarreal defeated Adelaide United 3-2 in their opening match on their Australian tour.  The game was noteworthy for the return of Denis Cheryshev, who entered in the 66th minute with Luciano Vietto, the two of them combining on the tying goal.

Villarreal went behind 2-0 but according to the recap of the match on the official site it wasn't a question of jet lag or us trying to remember how to play with the round ball after kicking the Aussie Rules football around yesterday, but (cue the broken record) our failure to finish off clear chances that put us behind.   Villarreal had four chances to score, two falling to Gio (he hit a post with one of his shots), Moi and Gerard.

Adelaide went ahead 1-0 before the break with a goal on a counter, and made it 2-0 with a header off a corner kick (now where have we seen that before?).

Villarreal pulled a goal back just after the hour mark, Trigueros finishing off a pass from Rukavina, and then Marcelino made some offensive substitutions, bringing in Cheryshev, Vietto and Jonathan dos Santos in the 66th minute.  That paid off nicely fifteen minutes later when Cheryshev combined with Vietto on the equalizer, and then in the first minute of injury time Gerard scored off a move from Vietto to give Villarreal the win.

Disappointment for the roughly 9,000 in attendance as far as not seeing a famous home win, but it sounds as if all were entertained pretty well.

Adelaide newspaper report (with photos) here; official site report (in Spanish) here.  Looking at the lineup, it appears Rukavina played on one wing but slid back to the back four when Cheryshev came on for Mario.

Valencia defeated Columbus Crew 1-0 and I believe Espanyol lost to Barcelona (Ecuador) 1-0 in other matches in the La Liga World Challenge.