Unai Emery's Quest for Super Cup Glory with Aston Villa
Unai Emery chases the one that keeps getting away.
The Aston Villa manager has built an empire in the Europa League, five titles and a legend forged in tense spring nights. He ended Villa’s 30-year wait for silverware in May with victory over Freiburg in Istanbul. Yet the Super Cup, this awkward, glittering one-off that sits between seasons, keeps slipping through his fingers.
On Wednesday in Salzburg, he gets another crack at it. Against Paris St-Germain, of all clubs. Against his own past.
A king without a crown
Emery’s relationship with this competition is oddly cruel. He has reached it three times and lost three times. Real Madrid beat his Sevilla in 2014, Cristiano Ronaldo scoring twice. A year later, Lionel Messi dragged Barcelona through a wild 5-4 extra-time win against him. Then, in 2021, his Villarreal side went all the way to penalties against Chelsea in Dublin and still walked away empty-handed.
By the time Sevilla lost the 2016 Super Cup to Real, he had already gone. The stage was there, the trophy on show, but the man who had earned the right to be there had moved on.
Now he returns with Aston Villa, backed by 6,000 travelling fans, into the Red Bull Arena to face the Champions League winners. The same PSG who once employed him. The same PSG who knocked Villa out of Europe in heartbreaking fashion just 484 days ago.
Emery is not one to shrug off near-misses. Last season he spoke openly about wanting third place in the Premier League, a benchmark he had not yet hit with Villa. They finished fourth. A triumph in almost every context. For a perfectionist, a small but sharp stone in the shoe.
The Super Cup will be filed in the same category. Not essential to a season, not quite a defining prize. But it matters to him.
“He was reminding me last week,” Emery said, pointing towards captain John McGinn as he recalled that shootout defeat to Chelsea. The smile told one story. The eyes told another. “Of course, it’s an opportunity. A trophy is something that can give us a special moment. To play for trophies is, as a professional, our objective.”
Friendly in name, trophy in reality
The Super Cup often lives in a strange space. Like the Community Shield, it is easy to dismiss as a glamorous friendly with a ribboned cup at the end. Managers rotate, pre-season legs are heavy, squads are incomplete.
Yet look at the roll of honour. Carlo Ancelotti has five Super Cups – two with AC Milan, three with Real Madrid. Pep Guardiola sits one behind after triumphs with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. The elite care enough to keep collecting them.
Emery knows that list well. Ancelotti’s third crown came in that 2014 win over his Sevilla. Another reminder of what separates the very good from the truly decorated.
PSG, for their part, are keen to stress this is no exhibition. They arrive as back-to-back Champions League winners, serial Ligue 1 champions, and still they talk about hunger.
“We're still hungry for victories, trophies. It's very difficult to maintain those levels but we're still hungry,” said midfielder Vitinha, already a four-time French champion, while acknowledging that PSG’s pre-season “was a little short”.
Marquinhos echoed him. The defender, a pillar of the club’s modern era, framed the Super Cup as another obligation in a club that has built its identity on stacking trophies.
“Just because we've won things these past seasons, that doesn't mean it's easy. We know there'll be plenty of obstacles,” he said. “Personally, I want more, and each player in the squad is like that. We've all worked to get here, to arrive in the best condition.”
Even the minor drama over the size of PSG’s dressing room in Salzburg – the club complained and were handed an extra space by Uefa – spoke of a team who expect certain standards when silverware is on the line.
Ghosts of the quarter-final
This is not just a Super Cup. It is a rerun of one of last season’s most compelling ties.
In the 2024-25 Champions League quarter-final, Villa walked into the Parc des Princes and left 3-1 down. When PSG then surged into a 2-0 lead in Birmingham, the aggregate score ballooned to 5-1. The tie looked dead.
Villa refused to accept the script. They clawed it back to 3-2 on the night, pouring forward, rattling a heavyweight who suddenly looked unsure. They went out 5-4 on aggregate but left with something far more valuable than sympathy. Respect.
It was a defining moment in Emery’s Villa project – proof that his side could stand toe-to-toe with Europe’s elite, not just for 20 romantic minutes but across a full, brutal tie.
Vitinha has not forgotten it.
“It was such a difficult test, especially the second half,” he admitted. “We'll be ready but we're conscious of how difficult it's going to be.”
PSG know now that Villa do not fold. That memory will shape how seriously they treat Wednesday night.
A new-look Villa, same ruthless edge
For all the familiarity of the touchline figure, this is not the same Villa who pushed PSG so close.
Morgan Rogers, Lucas Digne and Youri Tielemans have all moved on. Amadou Onana, a key part of the midfield, is out injured until next year. Boubacar Kamara has travelled, but he is only just returning from a serious knee injury suffered in January.
The spine that drove last season’s surge has been thinned for now. Emi Martinez, Ezri Konsa and Ollie Watkins have not even made the trip, granted a month off by Emery after their World Cup exertions. It leaves the prospect that only four of the starters from that quarter-final second leg will begin in Austria. Five of the substitutes from that night are no longer at the club.
For a team that has felt so stable under Emery, such churn is jarring.
McGinn has lived all of it. Eight years at Villa Park, through promotion, struggle, resurgence and now this polished, European-facing version of the club.
“A lot has changed in the eight years I've been here,” the captain said. “When you are signing the best young English talent and players are performing at the highest level there will be interest.
“We have a structure in place, standards and rules which have made us a success. I'm really excited about the new Aston Villa.
“We have our main core, the same manager, same methods and same desire to achieve more. A lot of people thought we reached a ceiling a couple of seasons ago and we proved them wrong.”
That is the heart of this story. Villa have lost players, but not their identity. The coach remains. The core remains. The ambition, if anything, has grown sharper.
Emery’s fourth shot
So what is this match, really, for Emery?
It is not the Champions League, not a title race decider, not a domestic cup final at Wembley. It will not define his legacy. Yet it carries a weight he can feel.
He has built a reputation as the master of Europe’s second competition, the man who always finds a way across two legs. The Super Cup, by contrast, has been his one-night curse.
On Wednesday, under the lights in Salzburg, against the club that once let him go and the club he so nearly toppled last season, he gets the chance to rewrite that line on his CV.
For Villa, it is a shot at another trophy and another step in their transformation from plucky contenders to established European force.
For Emery, it is something simpler, and more personal.
The king of the Europa League wants his missing crown.
