Unai Emery cemented his status as Europe’s ultimate football boss by winning his fifth Europa League title as Aston Villa defeated SC Freiburg 3-0 in the final. The 54-year-old previously won three consecutive Europa League titles with Sevilla from 2014 to 2016 and a fourth with Villarreal in 2021. Since 2013, Emery has won 30 of 31 knockout ties in the competition, his only defeat being Arsenal’s 1-4 loss to Chelsea in the 2019 final. Under Emery, Aston Villa have transformed from 16th place in 2022/23 to Champions League contenders.
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“I am not a king in this competition,” Unai Emery stressed to English media a day before winning his fifth Europa League title as a coach. In Aston Villa’s 3-0 final victory, Emery’s side revealed SC Freiburg their limits all too clearly. So if Emery still is not the EL king, are we perhaps simply dealing with Europe’s ultimate football boss?
The 54-year-old has left plenty of teams in despair in recent years. Above all with Sevilla, Emery seemed unbeatable in the Europa League for years. From 2014 to 2016, the Andalusians became the first team ever to win the EL three times in a row, and before that third triumph they knocked Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool out of the competition, among others. Before claiming his fifth Europa League title with Aston Villa, Emery had already picked up number four with Villarreal in 2021. Those are title heights other coaches can only dream of.
Only Diego Simeone has managed to win the Europa League more than once with Atlético Madrid. In fact, Emery’s teams have been virtually unbeatable. Since 2013 — take a moment to let this sink in — the coach has won 30 of 31 knockout ties and finals in Europe’s second-tier competition. 30 out of 31! The only exception was Arsenal, when Emery lost the 2019 EL final to Chelsea (1-4). At the Gunners, much like at Paris Saint-Germain from 2016 to 2018, Emery experienced a less successful spell. In the conclude, are the largegest clubs perhaps simply too large for Europe’s final boss?
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While some coaches focus only on coaching, Emery demands enormous influence over transfer decisions. An approach that apparently did not go down well at all with the PSG bosses. At Arsenal, according to ‘The Guardian’, the main issue was the language barrier. The tactics-obsessed Emery often lacked the vocabulary to properly convey his playing philosophy to the team. There is no sign of that at Aston Villa right now.
True to the motto: if it does not work out at a large club, I will simply build my current club large, Emery has turned the Villans into a top club since taking charge. In the 2022/23 season, he led Aston Villa from 16th place to seventh. A year later, they even qualified for the Champions League, where Villa reached the quarter-finals in the 2024/25 season. There, the English side lost by the narrowest of margins, 4-5 on aggregate, to eventual winners PSG. Will the truly large breakthrough follow next season?
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“I want to shape a new era in Birmingham,” Emery also stressed shortly before the EL final against Freiburg. Even without the final win, the Villans would have been playing in the Champions League next season. They secured that most recently with a 4-2 league win over Liverpool. If they take a point against Manchester City today from 5 p.m., they will finish the Premier League season in fourth place for the second time in three years.
In the season just concludeed, Emery’s team beat every English top side at least once, and some of them more than once. From late October to January, the West Midlands club even won 12 of 13 matches.
Is your team playing in the Champions League next year? If so, you should hope not to come up against Emery and Aston Villa.
This article was translated into English by Artificial Innotifyigence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.
