{"id":10801,"date":"2026-05-19T18:26:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=10801"},"modified":"2026-05-19T18:26:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:26:29","slug":"aston-villa-bid-to-complete-journey-from-championship-to-europa-league-glory-europa-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=10801","title":{"rendered":"Aston Villa bid to complete journey from Championship to Europa League glory | Europa League"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A<\/span>s Aston Villa arrived at Besiktas Park on the banks of the Bosphorus, for one last training session before the real thing, it was impossible not to consider the journey to the Europa League final. John McGinn, who will lead Villa out as captain in Istanbul, was in the side promoted from the Championship via the playoff final seven years ago. Tyrone Mings also started that day at Wembley and across the course of the following 12 months Villa built a spine that on Wednesday will be central to their hopes of winning their first major European trophy since 1982.<\/p>\n

It is why McGinn\u2019s mind goes back to a 3-0 league defeat at Wigan and a midweek trip to Rotherham in the season they clinched promotion, averting a likely financial disaster. Tammy Abraham, then on loan from Chelsea, also began the playoff final victory over Derby. \u201cIf we lose that match, are Aston Villa here at the minute?\u201d McGinn says. \u201cProbably not. For us, tomorrow night, it will be nice to see the supporters who were there at Rotherham away, Wigan away, nights like that on a Tuesday evening when it\u2019s very easy to stay at home. They deserve it just as much as the players do and hopefully we can give them something to remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>Aston Villa fans are out in force already in Istanbul for Wednesday\u2019s Europa League final.<\/span> Photograph: Georgi Licovski\/EPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ezri Konsa, a beacon of consistency who could be forgiven for living off being labelled a Rolls-Royce by Prince William, who is expected to attend the final as an avid Villa supporter, joined in the months after they returned to the Premier League. Emiliano Mart\u00ednez, Ollie Watkins and Matty Cash arrived the following summer. Together the core of this Villa side have reached the Europa Conference League semi-finals, the Champions League quarter-finals and a FA Cup semi-final. On Wednesday they will, as Emery says, be the focus of the footballing world.<\/p>\n

McGinn has spoken about shedding the tag of \u201cnearly men\u201d and Mart\u00ednez acknowledges it would be \u201cmassive\u201d to get over the line against Freiburg. \u201cWe\u2019ve been together for so many years, played so many games together, going from mid-table to the European places, semi-finals and now we\u2019re in the final. I think we deserve it. I think the fans deserve it. And obviously the manager has had five finals and you wouldn\u2019t want anyone else on the bench leading us in a European final.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mart\u00ednez likens trying to feed Villa\u2019s hunger for a first trophy since the League Cup in 1996 to his first Copa Am\u00e9rica with Argentina in 2021. \u201cI went into my first Copa Am\u00e9rica without seeing Argentina win a trophy,\u201d says the World Cup winner. \u201cI was 27, 28 years old and this is the same. In Birmingham the Villa fans always say: \u2018I\u2019ve never seen Villa in a European final, I\u2019ve never seen Villa lifting a trophy.\u2019 So it\u2019s that same mindset as I went into my first Copa Am\u00e9rica, with that anger, belief and confidence I can do it. I believe in my team and myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Emiliano Mart\u00ednez almost left the club last summer but now has the chance to win the Europa League.<\/span> Photograph: Bradley Secker\/EPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mart\u00ednez was speaking publicly for the first time since attempting to leave the club last summer. It was this time last season he cried as he left Villa Park, presuming it would be for the last time. \u201cWe are in a European final, in the Champions League again with all the circumstances and the ups and downs, and with the budget we had this year, we were among the lowest spenders in the Premier League,\u201d says Mart\u00ednez. \u201cSometimes football can change \u2026 when we stick together and fight together we can beat anybody. I am really proud to stay \u2013 I made the right choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Villa yearn for a trophy and, as Mart\u00ednez says, the consensus is that in Emery they have something of a superpower. Thomas Tuchel\u2019s comments in the buildup to Chelsea\u2019s Super Cup victory over Emery\u2019s Villarreal in 2021 spring to mind. \u201cThey can call the (Europa League) trophy the Unai Emery trophy soon,\u201d said the now England manager. Emery, however, is reluctant to lean into that characterisation.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI am not a king in this competition,\u201d says the Basque. \u201cI am now here with Aston Villa in a new chapter. And everything I did is done \u2013 of course it\u2019s there in that moment but with it I am not winning tomorrow. I need to win with the players we have now, with Villa now. It\u2019s a new way, a new moment and, hopefully, a new era.\u201d<\/p>\n

Villa, who could welcome back Amadou Onana from a calf injury after he trained with his teammates on Tuesday, are heavy favourites to beat a Freiburg side seventh in the Bundesliga. McGinn and Emery recognise as much, both reading from the same hymn sheet. McGinn talks of treating Freiburg with the respect they deserve, Emery of a tricky task. \u201cTomorrow we have a huge challenge,\u201d Villa\u2019s manager says. \u201cAre we thinking about the next party on Friday? No, no, no.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Aston Villa arrived at Besiktas Park on the banks of the Bosphorus, for one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}