Aston Villa will face Freiburg in the Europa League final on Wednesday in Istanbul, with kick-off set for 8pm and Unai Emery chasing another trophy in the competition he knows best. For Villa, it is a night that carries the weight of 44 years of waiting.
The club are in their first European final since the 1982 European Cup final, a gap that turns this into more than a final in name alone. Emery is taking charge of his sixth European final and has already won the Europa League three times with Sevilla and once with Villarreal, though he also lost the 2019 final to Chelsea when he was Arsenal boss.
Villa arrive with momentum and without the pressure of needing the result for their continental future. They have already secured Champions League qualification by finishing in the Premier League top five, which means Wednesday is about silverware rather than survival or repair.
That has helped frame the occasion as a chance to finish a strong season with something lasting. Ollie Watkins said there has been a massive turnaround since Emery came into the club, and he described Villa’s semi-final second-leg 4-0 win over Nottingham Forest at Villa Park as an almost perfect game. Watkins has been central to that run, with five goals and two assists in the competition this season.
He said he could not speak highly enough of Emery, crediting the manager for the belief he has brought into the squad and the work done on the training pitch to put the game plan in place. Watkins also said it will be the first time this Villa group has played together in a final, adding that the side have reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and the semi-finals of the Conference League but now want to go one step further. He said the team cannot rest there and hopes they can bring the trophy back to Birmingham.
Emery, who has built a reputation around this competition over many seasons, was measured about the task ahead. He said a Europa League win would be another step forward, but stressed that the final is finely balanced. In his view, it is 50-50 for Aston Villa or Freiburg to win the trophy, and there is still a lot of work to do despite the level Villa have shown.
That is the tension at the centre of Wednesday’s final. Villa’s rise under Emery has been real and fast, but Freiburg arrive with the same chance to shape the night. The result will not decide where Villa stand in Europe next season — that part is already settled — but it will decide whether this team turns a strong campaign into one that supporters will point to for years.
