Unai Emery's Quest for the Elusive Super Cup

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 confirmed his status as the master of the marathon.

But the Super Cup? That one keeps slipping through his fingers.

On Wednesday in Salzburg, at the Red Bull Arena, Emery goes again. A fourth attempt at a trophy that refuses to bend to his will, this time with Villa against Champions League holders Paris St-Germain, the club he once coached and the side that broke his heart in last season’s quarter-finals.

For a man wired like Emery, this is not a friendly dressed up in confetti. It’s a loose end.

A perfectionist with one itch left

Last season he set his players a very specific domestic target: finish third in the Premier League, something he had not yet done with Villa. They came fourth. For most clubs, for most managers, that is a triumph. For Emery, it will have gnawed away all summer.

This Super Cup sits in the same category. Not essential to his legacy, but an obvious gap in an otherwise overflowing cabinet.

The competition has treated him without mercy. 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 epic, another Sevilla defeat. In 2016, Sevilla lost to Real again, but Emery had already left for PSG by then.

His last shot came in 2021 with Villarreal. Chelsea, on penalties, in Dublin. Close. Not close enough.

Now he turns up in Austria with 6,000 Villa fans following, facing his old employers, knowing exactly what this represents: a chance to snap a losing streak on a stage that has repeatedly pushed him away.

He admitted as much when John McGinn reminded him of that Chelsea loss. Emery called this “an opportunity”, a trophy that can give “a special moment”. For him, for his players, for a club that has re-learned how to dream.

Is it just a showpiece? Not for these two

The Super Cup often gets thrown into the same box as the Community Shield. Nice photos, a shiny plate, a pre-season tune-up with fireworks. Carlo Ancelotti and Pep Guardiola have stacked them up almost as an aside: Ancelotti has five, Guardiola four.

But listen to PSG and you hear something different. This is not a soft landing after a long summer.

Vitinha, already a four-time Ligue 1 champion and now part of a back-to-back Champions League-winning squad, brushed away any idea that PSG treat it as a marketing exercise. He did concede their “pre-season was a little short”, yet insisted the hunger for trophies has not dulled.

“We’re still hungry for victories, trophies. It’s very difficult to maintain those levels but we’re still hungry,” he said.

Marquinhos struck the same note. PSG were irritated enough by the size of their dressing room at the Red Bull Arena that Uefa handed them an extra one. That hardly screams “glorified friendly”.

“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, adding that he personally wants more and that the entire squad has worked to arrive “in the best condition”.

They are favourites. They know it. Emery knows it. But he also knows something else.

The quarter-final that changed how Europe saw Villa

This is not just a Super Cup. It is a reunion.

The last time Villa met PSG, in the Champions League quarter-finals of 2024-25, the tie looked dead. PSG won the first leg 3-1 at Parc des Princes. In Birmingham, when the French champions surged into a 2-0 lead, Villa trailed 5-1 on aggregate.

Then Villa erupted.

They tore back, scored three, won the second leg 3-2 and went out 5-4 on aggregate. It was chaotic, breathless, and for a spell it felt as if Emery might script one of the great European shocks. They fell just short, but that night changed the way people spoke about Aston Villa.

They were no longer a plucky Premier League story. They were a side capable of rattling Europe’s elite.

Vitinha hasn’t forgotten it. “It was such a difficult test, especially the second half,” he said. PSG will arrive ready, but not complacent.

They can’t be. They’ve seen what happens when Villa catch fire.

A new-look Villa, same hard edge

And yet, that Villa side is already fading into history.

Only 484 days have passed since that quarter-final, but the team Emery fields in Salzburg will look very different. Morgan Rogers, Lucas Digne and Youri Tielemans have all gone. Amadou Onana is out until next year. Boubacar Kamara is only just back in a squad again after a serious knee injury in January.

The spine that carried Villa through last season’s run has been disrupted. Emi Martinez, Ezri Konsa and Ollie Watkins have not even travelled, granted a month off after their World Cup exertions.

The result? Emery may start with only four players who began that PSG tie. Five of the substitutes from that night have also left the club. For a team that has felt so stable under him, this is a jolt.

McGinn, who has lived through Villa’s entire modern transformation, sees something else: evolution, not erosion.

“A lot has changed in the eight years I’ve been here,” the captain said. When you recruit “the best young English talent” and players perform at the highest level, he added, interest is inevitable.

His point was clear. The departures are not a sign of decline, but of relevance. Villa now operate in a market where their best are wanted by the biggest.

McGinn spoke about structure, standards and rules, the pillars that have made Villa a success under Emery. He called this “the new Aston Villa”, but stressed the core remains: same manager, same methods, same hunger.

A couple of seasons ago, people thought Villa had hit their ceiling. They were wrong then. McGinn is convinced there is more to come.

One more step for the serial winner

So Emery walks out in Salzburg with a reshaped team, against a club that knows him and a competition that has teased him. The Super Cup will never define him in the way the Europa League has, but it represents something he craves: proof that Villa can turn near-misses into medals on any stage.

He has watched Ancelotti and Guardiola stack these trophies up while his own Super Cup story has been written in defeat. Now he stands on the touchline again, chasing the one European night that has always said no.

If Aston Villa really are entering a new era, this is the kind of evening that tells you how far they can go – and how much higher Emery still intends to climb.