Villarreal reached the semi-final stage of the Champions League last season, but that came at the cost of poor domestic form.
Because of that, they would play in the Europa Conference League in this campaign.
Unai Emery is one of the most successful managers in European competitions and this is his first time managing a club in this competition.
The Spaniards have been preparing well for this season with several transfer activities and they would want to be in a European competition.
Split is one of Croatia’s most successful football clubs and they will want to fly their country’s flag in the Conference League.
Because of Villarreal’s history in European competition, the Croats know they are not the favourites, but that could play to their advantage and make it easy for them to cause an upset.
Emery will not want to underrate them and we expect his team to work hard to earn a very good first-leg advantage in this game.
Villarreal won their first league game of the season at the weekend 3-0 and they haven’t lost a match in five attempts.
Split has lost their last two matches, but they won the previous three.
This game will see at least 2 goals scored, so we predict over 1.5 goals.
For other 1.5 goals prediction of the day, click here.
