Soccer
I’m not Europa League ‘king’, says Unai Emery as he bids to lead Villa to glory
Aston Villa boss Unai Emery insists he is not the “king” of the Europa League as he bids to win the competition for a fifth time when his side face Freiburg in the final in Istanbul on Wednesday.
Villa have impressed in Europe under the Spaniard, reaching the Conference League semi-finals in 2024 and the last eight of the Champions League last year, while they now stand just one game away from their first major trophy in 30 years.
Emery has been hailed as a specialist in the Europa League after winning it three times with Sevilla and once with Villarreal but says past glories will count for nothing against Bundesliga side Freiburg at Besiktas Park.
He told a pre-match press conference: “I am not a king in this competition.
“I am now with Aston Villa in a new chapter and everything I did is done. It’s there in that moment, but with it I am not winning tomorrow.
“I need to win tomorrow with the players we have now, with Aston Villa now, with the opponent we face tomorrow. So it’s a new way, a new moment and hopefully a new era.
“I don’t want to speak a lot about the thing we did before.
“Now, this year, and the matches we played before in the Conference League or in the Champions League, and they are showing the capacity to play at a high level.”
Emery has transformed Villa since he replaced Steven Gerrard in November 2022, taking them from battling relegation to fighting for titles.
His side now have a chance to cap a memorable season which has brought Champions League qualification with the club’s first major trophy since the 1996 League Cup and first continental crown since their European Cup triumph in 1982.
Emery knows his players will feel pressure but wants them to embrace the feeling of playing in high-profile matches like the one on Wednesday night.
He added: “This is a process. A process (for) how we could achieve, building the team and our structure.
“Now it’s a new experience we will have tomorrow. It’s very important how we manage our emotions and we’ve done it for a lot of matches and there are a lot of emotions.
“The pressure is here as well, but we must try to understand the pressure like something positive, not negative. And the pressure is when you are playing for something important. And of course we have experience here.”
Villa’s achievements this season have come after they failed to win any of their first six matches in all competitions and Emery, who admitted the slow start had him “really worried”, praised his players for bouncing back.
He added: “We started so poorly at the beginning of the season for different reasons. But how the players responded in the difficult moments was really amazing.
“We were mature in the difficult moments. This is the most important characteristic we had during the season – mature and responsible.
“I was worried at the beginning. Really worried. I was always trying to find solutions in each moment. I needed the players, I needed the work we did and the reaction we did. But we did it together.”
