In Istanbul on Wednesday, Unai Emery will step onto the touchline at Besiktas Park for his sixth Europa League final in just twelve years — a span so remarkable it borders on the improbable. For Aston Villa, a club that finished bottom of the Premier League with just 17 points and three wins as recently as 2015-16, the journey to this moment reads like something out of a footballing fairy tale.
Emery's record in the competition is unmatched: three consecutive victories with Sevilla (2014, 2015, 2016) including a win over Liverpool, followed by a penalty shootout triumph against Manchester United with Villarreal in 2021. Across 115 Europa League matches, he has won 71 — but his finest work has come at Villa. His 85.7% win rate with the club is a competition record, and since the start of the 2023-24 season, no side in Europe has won more matches than Villa's tally of 26.
Yet Emery, who replaced Steven Gerrard in late 2022, dismisses any notion of personal coronation. "I am not a king in this competition," he said. "I need to win [in Turkey] with the players we have now, with Villa now. So now it's a new way, a new moment, and hopefully a new era." It is this relentless focus on the present that has propelled Villa from a Conference League semi-final in his first season, to a Champions League quarter-final the next, to Wednesday's showpiece against Olympiacos — the very club that denied them a European final just two years ago.
Defender Tyrone Mings, who joined permanently from Bournemouth for £20m in 2018 as Villa climbed back from the Championship, spoke of the significance of the moment for supporters who have watched decades of near-misses. "In recent years, the fans have seen other clubs winning titles in Europe and domestically and there's a slight jealousy among the fanbase that we haven't been able to get over the line," he said. "It's a special time."
For 44 years since lifting the European Cup in 1982, Villa had managed only two quarter-final exits in European competition. Both have come under Emery. Nigel Spink, the goalkeeper from that 1982 triumph who made 460 appearances for the club, believes victory in Istanbul could mark a turning point. "If you manage to keep this manager then the sky's the limit," he said. "I sincerely think the Champions League trophy might not be too far away."