Aston Villa's Quest for Glory: One Game from Europa League Triumph
Unai Emery walked into Villa Park in November 2022 and said he had come to win trophies. Not to stabilise. Not to make up the numbers. To win.
On Thursday night, under floodlights and noise that felt almost physical, Aston Villa moved to within one game of delivering exactly that.
They did not creep into the Europa League final. They tore the door off its hinges.
Emery’s Villa step into Europe’s inner circle
Nottingham Forest arrived wounded and left dismantled. A rampant Villa side, fuelled by a crowd that sensed history, swept them aside to book a place in Istanbul on 20 May, where Freiburg now stand between Emery and a fifth Europa League crown.
Villa have not lifted a major trophy for 30 years. They have not won a European title since 1982. That drought now hangs over this squad like a challenge rather than a curse.
Above the Doug Ellis Stand, the words of the commentary from Peter Withe’s winner against Bayern Munich in Rotterdam are stitched into a banner. In two weeks’ time, the club might need fresh fabric and new words if Emery’s side finish the job in Turkey – and in doing so, secure a return to the Champions League regardless of their final Premier League position.
The performance against Forest crackled with that sense of opportunity. Ollie Watkins struck first, Emi Buendia buried a penalty with icy conviction, and John McGinn’s late double turned a commanding display into a statement. Forest never got close enough to make it a contest.
Vitor Pereira could name Morgan Gibbs-White, Ibrahim Sangare and Murillo among his substitutes, but they were there in body only. None was fully fit; only Murillo came on, and then for a token two minutes with the tie long gone.
Even with them at full tilt, they would have needed something extraordinary to slow Villa down. Emery’s team played as if someone had steadily turned up the volume over 90 minutes, the tempo rising, the pressure building, Forest slowly smothered.
In the stands, the atmosphere swirled. On the pitch, Villa were cold and clear.
“They were so focused, they were aware about the momentum,” Emery said afterwards. He talked about emotional planning, about treating this as the one game at Villa Park with a final at the end of it. He knew what it meant to the supporters and he set his team up to match that intensity.
It showed. The football was controlled but ruthless, full of running and risk at the right moments. It even drew Royal approval: Prince William, a lifelong Villa fan, headed into the dressing room afterwards to add his congratulations to the noise.
A manager built for this stage
This will be Emery’s sixth Europa League final. He has already won four – a record – and lost only once, to Chelsea with Arsenal in 2019. Across European competition, only Giovanni Trapattoni, with seven, has reached more major finals.
This is his territory. His competition. His habit.
“Europe is very important,” he reminded everyone. From his first press conference in Birmingham, he spoke about two things: Europe and trophies. The road has been long and steep, but the destination is suddenly in sight.
“In Europe, it's difficult to be consistent like we are,” he said. “It’s through our hard work and the players must set the standards we want to achieve. Today the players gave their best, collectively and individually.”
Watkins put it more bluntly when he spoke to TNT: “There's no better manager than this to get us prepared for this game and take us into the final. His track record speaks for itself. We need to go and win it now.”
That last line hung in the air. The job is not reaching Istanbul. The job is winning in Istanbul.
Watkins knows the stakes in another sense too. He admitted changes are expected this summer. This group, in its current form, is nearing the end of its cycle. That gives this run a harder edge. One last chance to do something together that will echo through the club’s history.
Emery has squeezed every drop out of this squad. Watkins, Ezri Konsa, Matty Cash, Morgan Rogers – players who arrived from the Championship – now stand 90 minutes from a European trophy. Inside the club, there is a clear understanding that the squad will need a refresh to stay at this level.
But right now, they are still here. Still running. Still chasing the kind of nights that used to belong to other people.
McGinn and the weight of history
No one feels that weight more than John McGinn.
The captain’s brace in the closing stages turned a comfortable night into a party, yet his mind quickly moved to the names that came before him: Dennis Mortimer lifting the European Cup in 1982, Paul McGrath parading the League Cups in 1994 and 1996.
“We've had low moments, definitely,” McGinn told TNT. “It's a demanding club to play for, but when it's like this, Villa Park is electric. What we've done in the last few years is exceptional.
“I felt it this morning, but now it is about embracing it and trying to be legends. You see the guys from 1982, you see the cup winners in the 90s.
“It's a historic club and it's been a long time without success. There's been massive lows, like relegation and it has built itself back up. It's such a proud football club, it deserves success and hopefully we can be the group to do it.”
Those words fit the night. This is not just a good team having a good season. This is a club trying to reconnect with its own past.
Buendia’s second life
Few stories capture that better than Emi Buendia.
Not long ago, his Villa career looked finished. Loaned to Bayer Leverkusen for the second half of last season, he started just three Bundesliga games. For a then-record signing, brought in from Norwich in a deal rising to £38m in 2021, the numbers were underwhelming: four goals in 38 matches in his first campaign, form that never quite matched the fee.
Then came the serious knee injury that wiped out his entire 2023-24 season. As Villa surged into the Champions League without him, he faded from the conversation.
Last summer, Villa were ready to sell, needing room in the accounts to satisfy Profit and Sustainability rules. Instead, they kept him. It might prove one of the most important decisions of Emery’s reign.
This season, Buendia has become one of his most trusted players, scoring 10 times and effectively blocking Harvey Elliott’s proposed loan move from Liverpool. Against Forest, he stood over the penalty that would tilt the tie decisively Villa’s way and looked as if he were taking a routine training-ground kick.
“I took responsibility,” he told TNT. “It was one of the most decisive penalties for the club in recent years, but I didn't feel pressure. I felt calm, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
“We showed the whole season how good we can play. The result is amazing and I think we deserve it.
“I think the prestige to win a trophy, with the history this club has – it would be amazing. The fans really want this trophy for us, and we will try.”
Former Villa striker Dion Dublin, watching on for BBC Radio 5 Live, highlighted the qualities that make Buendia so valuable in this side.
“Buendia goes below the radar,” he said. “He plays good passes, weight of pass is good. His finishing is good.
“He's nasty too, he doesn't mind putting a foot in. He is one of those players Villa need in their side in order to achieve things. He doesn't want the plaudits, he just wants to play and get to finals.”
On this evidence, he is doing both.
One game from immortality
The numbers around Emery’s European career will keep rolling out between now and Istanbul. The records, the finals, the trophies already on his CV. Yet at Villa Park, this feels less like a personal quest and more like a shared climb.
A manager obsessed with detail. A squad stitched together from different levels and different leagues. A fanbase that has known humiliation and revival. All of them now converging on one night in Turkey.
Villa are a game away from ending three decades without major silverware and 44 years without a European trophy. One match from stepping out of the shadows of 1982 and writing their own story.
They have talked about trophies since the day Emery walked through the door. Now the question is brutally simple.
Can they finish?
