Yahoo News Aston Villa are back among the European elite - and Unai Emery wants to be a 'protagonist'
Aston Villa are back on the biggest stage of them all and Unai Emery has made himself very clear: his side haven’t just qualified to make up the numbers.
“We are going to compete in the Champions League and I want to compete being a protagonist,” he insists. “I don’t want to play in the Champions League getting there and not being competitive.”
Villa will have to tap into the spirit of ‘82 to go far in this season’s competition as they’ll play as many games in the league phase as the club’s heroes from 42 years ago did to progress to the final. Valur, Dynamo Berlin, Dynamo Kyiv and Anderlecht were all seen off en route to Rotterdam.
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But under Emery, Villa head into the Champions League with a manager whose record in European football is second to none. If it weren’t for injuries and subsequent tiredness in his squad at the back end of last season, there’s a strong chance that he’d have ended the club’s long wait for silverware in the form of the Europa Conference League.
Villa crawled over the line to secure Champions League football as they failed to win any of their last six games of last season in all competitions. Without claiming victory in any of their final four Premier League games, it set their longest run without a win under Emery, whose players were finally at breaking point after a long campaign.
Emery now has more options and solutions to win games, making his team more unpredictable and indeed capable of battling throughout the season on all fronts. Nobody is expecting Villa to go far in the Champions League and that’s exactly what makes them so dangerous.
“We are demanding of ourselves and we want to keep the same spirit we had last year to compete.” Emery explains. “We will be competitive. I have experiences in different European competitions and we competed very well three years ago with Villarreal, getting to the semi-finals. It was fantastic, but now my new challenge is to do something similar with Aston Villa.
“I don’t know about getting to quarter-finals or semi-finals, but we have to be competitive and play each match facing the best teams in the world. The players have to be very demanding. We have changed some players in the squad, trying to get balance and developing in the direction we want to move forward in, getting better every year.”
Despite holding a position in the top four for the vast majority of last season, even as late as April were outsiders tipping Villa to drop out of the Champions League places. Villa were also overlooked for a European finish in the second half of 2022/23 even though they exhibited some sensational form following Emery’s appointment. And to no surprise, Villa have been ignored by many for a top six finish this season too.
A warning to the other 35 Champions League clubs: underestimate Emery’s Villa at your own peril.
“It’s our dream, it was our dream when we started the season to be here,” Emery said after securing fourth place in May. “To play in the Champions League is, after the Premier League, the best.
“You can play in the Premier League against the best teams in the world, it’s very difficult. When you are playing in the Champions League you are playing against the best teams, at the same time, from other countries. And it’s amazing.
“And we are always responsible about the history here, we know the history of Aston Villa is so long and so successful."
The Champions League format changed from this season given the increased number of participating teams. The key change is the departure from the former format's group stage system as 36 clubs will now participate in a league phase, which UEFA say gives more sides the opportunity to compete against the best clubs in Europe.
Under the new format, Villa will play eight matches in the new league phase, all against different teams after being drawn to Bayern Munich, Bologna, Juventus and Celtic at home and Young Boys, RB Leipzig, Club Brugge and AS Monaco away. The results of each match will decide the overall ranking in the new league, with three points for a win and one for a draw still applying.
The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the round of 16, while the teams finishing in 9th to 24th place will compete in a two-legged knock-out phase play-off to secure their path to the last 16 of the competition. Teams that finish 25th or lower will be eliminated, with no access to the UEFA Europa League.
In the knockout phase, the teams that finish between 9th and 16th will be seeded in the knockout phase play-off draw, meaning they will face a team placed 17th to 24th – with, in principle, the return leg at home. The eight clubs which prevail in the knockout phase play-offs will then progress to the round of 16, where they will each face one of the top-eight finishers, who will be seeded in the round of 16.
From the round of 16 onwards, the competition will continue to follow its existing format of knockout rounds leading to the final staged at Bayern Munich’s home, the Allianz Arena.
The concern which many outsiders have about Villa this season is their ability to juggle their European exploits with their domestic duties. Perhaps Newcastle’s struggles last term serve as a warning, but for 17 consecutive seasons now, Emery has competed in European competition, famously winning the Europa League three times in a row with Sevilla.
After the 12 Europa Conference League games Villa played last term, they only lost twice in the following league game, once against Tottenham at home and the other at Brighton in May as Emery’s squad began to creak. Now he has more options and surely far fewer injury problems as the season unfolds, Emery won’t be paying any attention to outside noise. Villa have flown under the radar until now and will continue to put their detractors in their place.
