Madrid, April 7 (IANS) Real Madrid striker Gonzalo Higuain was the man of the match as a late flurry of goals gave Real Madrid a 5-1 win over Levante at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium here.
Higuain opened the scoring with a magnificent volley and set Cristiano Ronaldo up to make it 3-1 with just six minutes left to play Saturday night, before two late goals from Mesut Ozil gave a sheen to the final score that the game perhaps didn’t deserve, reports Xinhua.
Jose Mourinho went into the game with his attention firmly fixed on his side’s Champions League quarterfinal return leg away to Galatasaray and although Sergio Ramos and Xabi Alonso, who are both suspended for that game were in the side, others such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Sami Khedira and Rafael Varene were all rested.
Madrid controlled possession against a side that was quite content to sit deep and defend 30 yards from goal and without Ronaldo the home side lacked the potential to surprise with a shot from distance.
Nevertheless they did create chances only to see Gistavo Munua save from Kaka before Javier Callejon fired over when well placed and Karim Benzema scuff a shot wide.
Ronaldo came on at the start of the second half and Madrid began to rain shots in on the Levante goal, although most of them failed to trouble Munua.
Levante meanwhile looked content to lose 2-1 and made little effort to make life hard for the rivals. Indeed the visitors actually committed less fouls than their rivals and didn’t have a player booked in the entire game.
It looked as if the match would peter out before Higuain turned Ballesteros and set up Ronaldo to fire home from around 10 yards.
Levante then switched off completely and Ozil added two goals from close range as Madrid cut through the visiting defence with ease to take a confidence boosting win to Turkey next week.
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