r/avfc

I wanted to congratulate yall for the European league title. I have always liked Aston villa because my team, Trabzonspor, and they share the same colors. Again, congratulations and I hope we play against each other in a champions league final one day. 💙❤️

Rival fans will go off about how the PL teams are always favourites and how the new Europa format gives us too much advantage, how we have Emery so it was so obvious we were going to win, and how it was never in doubt. Of course, as fans who haven't won a trophy in 30 years, and a whole generation (including myself) haven't seen it, it sure never felt so certain to us, so when it happened, it was just such a beautiful moment.

But make no mistake: it wasn't just a great performance in the final. Even compared to other PL teams' performances in Europa, we made it look easy.

Let's start with the league stages, in which we mostly rotated. I'd argue we didn't really play amazingly well in really any of the away games, where some wins (like Feyenoord) honestly felt like robbery. But to me as long as you don't make a habit of it, it is actually a very good thing if you know how to play badly and win, as all of the top teams do it. The home performances though were all brilliant aside from Salzburg in which we were threadbare due to injuries and not being able to register anyone in the ongoing window, but even that one we managed to win (thanks to the kids)!

We finished the league stages 2nd only on goal difference, won 7, lost 1. We only conceded 6 goals, and scored 14.

And then the knockout stages. Lille aren't as strong as the team that were minutes away from knocking us out of the Conference League a couple years ago, but we were in poor form heading to an incredibly hostile stadium that hates Emi's guts where we had conceded twice last time and looked out of our depth, only to walk away with a clean sheet and a win. Put out a rotated team in the second leg, another clean sheet and two goals. Next up were Bologna, a team we had beaten twice before, but one who hadn't lost in Europa ever since and had just gotten past Roma., and even with Rowe looking unplayable in the first leg, we made absolute light work of them even then, and then walked all over them at home.

Forest was a weird one because after losing the first leg, many fans honestly feared the worst. Semifinals was as far as we'd gotten before after all, and Forest's form looked scary. But on closer inspection, at their ground (cracking atmosphere btw), they created one big chance all game which Emi saved, and it was a mostly even game, and even Emery said the plan was to keep it tight and not concede rather than go for a second. Any fears we had were put to rest with a dominant 4-0 at home.

The entire knockout phase, we conceded two goals. TWO. And scored 17. SEVENTEEN.

If you compare this to other PL teams: Forest ended 13th in the league phase with W4/D2/L2, conceding 7 but scoring 15, one of those draws was goalless when they couldn't make their dominant performance count. They thus had to play an RO32 where they blitzed Fener away but almost threw it away in the second leg at home, scraped past Midtjylland on pens having lost the home leg, scraped past Porto by 1 goal even when their opponent was down to 10 men in the second leg, and got smoked by us. The year before Tottenham and Man U both finished top 8 in the league phases, scraped through RO16 having failed to win their first leg, scraped past the quarter finals, had a weird semifinal win each, then gave us one of the worst Europa League finals devoid of quality.

All three of the those teams I mentioned got to a SF, did so much less comfortably, and did so whilst not being competitive in the league. Forest got safe from relegation for sure and their league position doesn't reflect how good they actually are, but they were nonetheless in a relegation scrap for much of their campaign. Tottenham and Man U finished 17th and 15th respectively, neither of which were under any genuine relegation threat due to how weak the promoted teams are, but they put all eggs in that Europa basket to get CL.

Yes you can look at this and say the PL teams have too much for other Europa level teams, and sure you could also look at this and say Tottenham fans won't care one bit how well they played up to or even in the final, or even in the PL, because they got the same trophy anyway. But do NOT let anyone diminish our achievement this season. We may have been favourites all along, and it probably was never in doubt, but our Europa League campaign was absolutely superb. And that is on our brilliant manager, but also on players, most of whom have been here for years, who were determined to have something to show for their efforts over the years, and they delivered in style.

UTFV. Can't wait to see what this team achieves next.

up the fucking villa

Freiburg Starting 11 Atubolo; Kubler, Ginter, Lienhart, Treu; Eggestein, Hofler; Beste, Manzaml, Grifo; Matanovic

Aston Villa Starting 11 Martinez; Cash, Konsa, Torres, Digne; Lindelof, Tielemans; McGinn, Rogers, Buendia; Watkins

Freiburg Subs Gunter, Holer, Huth, Irie, Jung, Makengo, Muller, Ogbus, Osterhage, Philipp, Rosenfelder, Scherhant

Aston Villa Subs Abraham, Bailey, Bizot, Bogarde, Luiz, Elliott, Garcia, Maatsen, Mings, Onana, Sancho, Wright

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Freiburg 0-3 Aston Villa

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This is it. The final. What we've all been waiting for. Let's enjoy it.

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Match Events

Villa KICK OFF AT ISTANBUL

5 min: Treu is booked for fouling McGinn

15 min: Buendia budges into Beste and is shown a yellow.

20 min: Cash is booked for a late challenge on Grifo. This ref is giving a yellow for each challenge at this rate

41 min: TIELEMANS!!! Corner is short to Rogers, then its crossed to the edge of the box to Tielemans who was completely free, and his first time shot aimed into the bottom left corner beats Atubolo. MacPhee you beauty of a tactician

43 min: BUENDIA! OMG WHAT A GOAL. Buendia is free on the right side for a good 30 seconds, Cash finds him, Buendia cuts in and curls it into the top left corner. Stunning

Half time. We lead 2-0 at the break.

Second half is underway

58 min: ROGERS! Thats it. Digne to Buendia, who waits for his team-mates, sends in a low cross and Rogers makes a brilliant run in to poke it in.

60 min: Double sub for Freiburg Leinhart and Hofler out for Rosenfelder and Holer

65 min: Lindelof comes off - he was terrific, absolute rock. Onana comes on

72 min: Grifo and Kubler are subbed off for Makengo and Scherhant

80 min: Buendia and Digne are coming off for Maatsen and Sancho

83 min: McGinn booked for a foul on Rosenfelder

85 min: Gunter on for Beste

87 min: Mings and Luiz are on for Tielemans and Torres. For Mings and Luiz this is massive for them to get some game time

What a night I will l never forget.. Worth every single penny I spent on that. Out the country 24 hours and 40 mins. I am writing this waiting for my train from London back to the home land Birmingham. Body is tired but I’m still buzzing. Think we all deserved to watch them lift that trophy. UTFV

EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS