Unai Emery's Quest for Super Cup Glory with Aston Villa
Unai Emery has built an empire in Europe’s second competition. Five Europa League titles, the latest carved out with Aston Villa in Istanbul as they ended a 30-year wait for silverware by beating Freiburg. That night only burnished his reputation.
Yet the Super Cup keeps slipping through his fingers.
On Wednesday in Salzburg, under the sharp Alpine lights of Red Bull Arena, Emery goes after it again. A fourth attempt. This time with Villa, against the most glamorous of opponents: back-to-back Champions League winners Paris St‑Germain.
For a coach obsessed with the fine details and the smallest margins, this is not just a ceremonial curtain-raiser. This is unfinished business.
A serial winner with a Super Cup scar
Emery’s European record is loaded with medals but marked by a peculiar gap. The Super Cup has been his blind spot.
Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea. The names on his list of conquerors are as heavy as the defeats themselves. In 2014, Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice as Real beat his Sevilla. A year later, a wild 5-4 extra-time loss to a Lionel Messi-inspired Barcelona left Emery and Sevilla empty-handed again.
By 2016, when Sevilla fell to Real Madrid once more, Emery had already moved on to PSG. The competition kept going without him; the wound remained.
He came closest in 2021 with Villarreal, dragging Chelsea to penalties in Dublin before losing the shootout. Close enough to taste it. Not close enough to lift it.
Now, with around 6,000 Villa fans travelling to Austria, he stands on that stage again. Same coach, different club, same itch to scratch.
“He was reminding me last week,” Emery said with a nod towards captain John McGinn, who had brought up that Chelsea defeat. The Villa manager didn’t need the reminder. This trophy has lived in his mind for years.
“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.”
Does the Super Cup really matter?
The debate always resurfaces. Is this game a serious piece of the European puzzle or a glamorous pre-season exhibition with a medal at the end?
Carlo Ancelotti has treated it like a prize worth hunting. He has five Super Cups – two with AC Milan, three with Real Madrid. Pep Guardiola sits one behind, his four spread across Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. They do not collect baubles for the sake of it.
Ancelotti’s third came at Emery’s expense in 2014, when Real beat Sevilla. Another scar on the Spaniard’s Super Cup record.
This week’s game has the same questions that hovered over the Community Shield between Arsenal and Manchester City. How hard do you go? How much does it matter?
PSG’s players were clear enough. For them, this is not a soft landing after a short summer.
Vitinha, already a four-time Ligue 1 champion with the club, dismissed any idea that the Champions League winners treat this as a friendly run-out, even if he admitted PSG’s “pre-season was a little short”.
“We're still hungry for victories, trophies. It's very difficult to maintain those levels but we're still hungry,” the Portugal international said.
Marquinhos echoed that edge. PSG, he insisted, are not turning up just to stretch their legs, even if the club were irritated enough by the size of their dressing room at Red Bull Arena that Uefa found them an extra one.
“Just because we've won things these past seasons, that doesn't mean it's easy. We know there'll be plenty of obstacles,” the defender 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.”
The quarter-final that changed how Villa were seen
This is not just a standalone showpiece. It is a rerun of one of last season’s most breathless European ties.
Villa and PSG met in the Champions League quarter-finals in 2024-25. On paper, it looked like a mismatch. On the pitch, it became a statement.
Emery’s side trailed 3-1 after the first leg at Parc des Princes. When PSG surged 2-0 ahead in Birmingham to make it 5-1 on aggregate, it felt over. It should have been over.
Villa refused to accept that script.
They roared back, turned 2-0 down into a 3-2 win on the night and pushed PSG to the brink, eventually bowing out 5-4 on aggregate. The comeback fell just short, but the message did not. Emery had turned Villa into a team capable of going toe-to-toe with Europe’s elite.
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.”
That memory lingers on both sides. For PSG, a warning. For Villa, proof.
A very different Villa, same ruthless standards
Just 484 days have passed since that quarter-final second leg. The Villa side walking out in Austria will look nothing like the one that scared PSG in Birmingham.
Morgan Rogers, Lucas Digne and Youri Tielemans have gone. Amadou Onana, a key figure in midfield, is sidelined until next year. Boubacar Kamara is back in the squad but only just returning from a serious knee injury that wiped out his year from January.
The spine that powered so much of last season is scattered. Even the World Cup has bitten into Emery’s plans. Emi Martinez, Ezri Konsa and Ollie Watkins have not travelled, each given a month off after their summer exertions.
The result? Villa could start with only four of the XI who faced PSG 18 months ago. Five of the substitutes that night have also left the club. For a team that has felt so stable under Emery, this is a jolt.
McGinn has seen the landscape shift.
“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.”
Players move on. The standards stay.
“We have a structure in place, standards and rules which have made us a success. I'm really excited about the new Aston Villa,” McGinn added. “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.”
Last season, Emery publicly set his sights on third place in the Premier League, a finish he had not yet delivered with Villa. They ended up fourth. For most clubs, that would be a triumph. For Emery, it will have gnawed away, another target narrowly missed.
The Super Cup sits in that same category. A trophy that is easy to dismiss until you are standing one game away from it, with a record of near-misses and a career defined by European nights.
PSG arrive as favourites. Emery knows it. He welcomes it.
“PSG are the favourites but I am looking forward to playing, how we can test this match against PSG with our capacity?” he said. “As a coach, as a player, as a club, it's a trophy. It's one thing that makes us proud of how we are and how we arrive here.”
For Villa, it is a chance to show that last season’s surge was not a one-off and that this “new Aston Villa” can live at this altitude. For Emery, it is something more personal.
He has conquered the Europa League. He has rebuilt clubs, reshaped dressing rooms, and out-thought giants. Yet the Super Cup keeps sitting just out of reach.
In Salzburg, against his former employers and the champions of Europe, he gets another swing at the one line missing from his European résumé.
