Atletico twice fight back in Villarreal draw

Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid shared an entertaining 2-2 draw with Villarreal as they began their La Liga campaign on Monday.

The Rojiblancos revamped their squad over the summer after struggling to a fourth-place finish but had to settle for a point at Villarreal’s Estadio de la Ceramica, twice coming from behind.

Alvaro Morata, Stefan Savic, Memphis Depay and others have departed while Atletico brought in Julian Alvarez, Alexander Sorloth and Robin Le Normand, who all made their debuts.

The latter two started on Spain’s east coast and Norwegian striker Sorloth netted what proved to be the goal to earn his team a point.

“I think we played a good game, we had some individual areas where we have to improve, but as a group we were committed,” said Simeone.

Villarreal took the lead through Arnaut Danjuma in the 18th minute with the forward starting his team’s La Liga opener after spells on loan at Tottenham and Everton.

The Dutch winger beat Axel Witsel for pace to run on to a pass and then worked some space to squeeze a low shot across goal and into the far corner.

Atletico reacted instantly, scoring little over a minute later when Antoine Griezmann played in Marcos Llorente who rifled into the roof of the net.

Samuel Lino hit the post for the visitors before Villarreal moved back ahead when Jan Oblak failed to claim a cross and the ball bounced in off the unfortunate Koke.

Atletico levelled through Sorloth, nodding home against his former side in first half stoppage time, his header squirming under goalkeeper Diego Conde, who should have kept it out.

Former Manchester City striker Alvarez, signed for an estimated 85 million euros ($93 million), came on for his Atletico debut in the final stages with the second half evenly fought.

New Villarreal arrival Nicolas Pepe hit the crossbar with a looping free-kick late on but the teams could not be separated.

“We conceded very quickly, too easily, and that gives you an uphill struggle,” Atletico midfielder Llorente told Movistar.

“We got back level, which is the hard thing, and we went and let in another goal, and in the end when you let in two it’s very hard to turn the game around and we didn’t do it today.”