Unai Emery's Quest for the UEFA Super Cup with Aston Villa
Unai Emery has built an empire in Europe’s second competition. Five Europa League titles, the latest with Aston Villa in May, when Freiburg were swept aside in Istanbul and a 30-year wait for silverware in Birmingham finally ended.
Yet one trophy keeps slipping through his fingers.
On Wednesday in Salzburg, at Red Bull Arena, Emery goes after the UEFA Super Cup again, for the fourth time, this time with Villa against Champions League holders Paris St-Germain. The stage is familiar. The outcome, for him, has never been kind.
The one gap on a crowded CV
Emery treats details like trophies. He obsesses over them. Last season he openly targeted third place in the Premier League, not because fourth was shameful, but because he had set a bar and missed it. Fourth was progress; it still stung.
The Super Cup sits in the same category. Not essential to survival, but vital to his sense of completion.
His record in this game is brutal. 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 over Emery’s side. By 2016, when Sevilla lost again to Real, Emery had already left for PSG, watching that defeat from afar.
He came closest in 2021 with Villarreal, dragging Chelsea all the way to penalties in Dublin before watching another Super Cup slip away.
Now it is Villa, PSG and another shot at the one major European fixture that keeps saying no.
At Red Bull Arena, against his former club and in front of 6,000 travelling Villa fans, the narrative is obvious: one of Europe’s great cup coaches against the team that sacked him, chasing the trophy that refuses to join his collection.
“He was reminding me last week,” Emery said, nodding towards captain John McGinn as he recalled that Chelsea defeat. There was a smile. The edge behind it was real.
“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.
“PSG are the favourites but I am looking forward to playing, how we can test this match against PSG with our capacity?
“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.”
Friendly with a bow on it – or something more?
The Super Cup has always lived in a strange space. Somewhere between curtain-raiser and statement. The Community Shield of Europe, with better lighting and a heavier trophy.
Carlo Ancelotti has turned it into a habit. Five wins – two with AC Milan, three with Real Madrid. Pep Guardiola sits one behind, his four split between Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. Ancelotti’s third came, pointedly, at Emery’s expense with Sevilla in 2014.
So the question hangs again. Is this just a glamorous pre-season friendly with medals, or does it truly matter?
Inside the PSG camp, the message is blunt. It matters.
Vitinha, already a four-time Ligue 1 winner and now part of a back-to-back Champions League-winning squad, brushed off any suggestion that PSG treat this as a soft launch, even if he admitted their “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 midfielder said.
Marquinhos hit the same note. PSG, who were annoyed enough by the size of their dressing room at Red Bull Arena that Uefa found them an extra one, are not in town for a lap of honour.
“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.”
Echoes of a quarter-final that changed perceptions
This is not a fresh rivalry. It is a rerun.
Villa and PSG last met in the Champions League quarter-finals in 2024-25. On paper, it looked like a mismatch. On the pitch, it turned into one of the clearest signs that Emery had dragged Villa into the company of Europe’s elite.
Villa trailed 3-1 from the first leg at Parc des Princes. In Birmingham, when PSG surged into a 2-0 lead on the night to go 5-1 up on aggregate, the tie seemed dead.
Then Villa erupted.
They clawed their way back to win 3-2 on the night, swarming a side built to win the Champions League and forcing genuine panic. They still went out 5-4 on aggregate, but the impression lingered: this was no longer a plucky Premier League side punching up. This was a serious European team.
Vitinha has not forgotten.
“It was such a difficult test, especially the second half,” he said. “We'll be ready but we're conscious of how difficult it's going to be.”
A new-look Villa, same hard edge
That night in Birmingham was only 484 days ago. Yet the Villa side walking out in Austria will look sharply different.
Morgan Rogers, Lucas Digne and Youri Tielemans have been sold. Amadou Onana is out until next year. Boubacar Kamara has made the squad but is only just back from the serious knee injury he suffered in January.
Emi Martinez, Ezri Konsa and Ollie Watkins have not travelled after their World Cup exploits, with Emery granting them a month off. It leaves the real possibility that only four of the starters from that quarter-final will begin against PSG. Five of the substitutes from that evening have moved on as well.
For a team that has felt so settled under Emery, that is a jolt.
McGinn has lived the transformation.
“A lot has changed in the eight years I've been here,” the skipper 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.”
Now comes the next question. In Salzburg, with a reshaped squad, against the club that once let Emery go and the competition that keeps turning him away, can Aston Villa and their Europa League king finally break through another ceiling?
