Unai Emery's Quest for the Elusive Super Cup

Unai Emery has built a career on owning Europe’s second stage. 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 snapped.

But the Super Cup keeps spitting him out.

On Wednesday night in Salzburg, against Champions League winners Paris St-Germain, Emery goes after it for a fourth time. For a manager obsessed with details, with the idea of completing every challenge set in front of him, this one has started to feel personal.

He would never call last season a failure. Fourth place in the Premier League, Champions League qualification, a Europa League crown – that is a season most clubs would frame on the wall. Yet he had said he wanted third. He didn’t get it. It will have irritated him in the way only perfectionists understand.

The Super Cup sits in the same category. Some dismiss it as a glamorous friendly with a medal at the end. Emery doesn’t work that way.

A long history of near-misses

Real Madrid. Barcelona. Chelsea. The names on his Super Cup scars are heavy.

In 2014, his Sevilla were undone by Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored twice to hand Real Madrid the trophy. A year later, Emery’s side went blow for blow with a Lionel Messi-inspired Barcelona, losing 5-4 after extra time in a wild, breathless night that underlined both his tactical courage and the brutal margins at this level.

By the time Sevilla lost the 2016 Super Cup to Real again, Emery had already gone. He was at PSG, beginning another chapter, while the trophy he had chased twice slipped away without him even in the dugout.

His third attempt came in 2021 with Villarreal. Chelsea, Dublin, penalties. Again, Emery watched the opposition lift the cup.

Now comes a fourth shot, in Austria, at Red Bull Arena, against his former club, backed by around 6,000 travelling Villa fans. It is exactly the kind of stage he relishes: a chance to end a strange, specific losing streak and to add a different kind of European line to his CV.

He knows the narrative. His captain John McGinn has already reminded him of it.

“Of course, it’s an opportunity,” Emery said, pointing to McGinn as he recalled the Chelsea defeat. “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.”

Does the Super Cup really matter?

Carlo Ancelotti has turned this competition into a habit. Five Super Cups – two with AC Milan, three with Real Madrid. Pep Guardiola sits one behind, with two from Barcelona and one each at Bayern Munich and Manchester City.

Ancelotti’s third came at Emery’s expense in 2014, when Real beat Sevilla. The Italian and the Catalan have always treated the Super Cup as a marker, a statement that the previous season’s work still carries weight.

Yet the debate persists. Is this anything more than a high-end pre-season showpiece, the European equivalent of the Community Shield that Arsenal and Manchester City contested on Sunday?

PSG insist it is.

Vitinha, a four-time Ligue 1 winner with the club, brushed aside the idea that back-to-back Champions League titles have dulled their appetite, even if he admitted their build-up has been shorter than ideal.

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

Defender Marquinhos struck the same note. PSG, who were unhappy with the size of their dressing room at Red Bull Arena and were given an additional one by Uefa, see this as another piece to add to a growing haul.

“Just because we’ve won things these past seasons, that doesn’t mean it’s easy. We know there’ll be plenty of obstacles,” he 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.”

A quarter-final that changed how Villa were seen

This is not just a Super Cup. It is a rerun of one of last season’s most compelling 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 something else entirely.

Emery’s side trailed 3-1 after the first leg at Parc des Princes. When PSG stretched the aggregate score to 5-1 in Birmingham, it felt over. A lesson in elite ruthlessness. Then Villa roared.

From 2-0 down on the night, they surged back to win 3-2, going out 5-4 on aggregate but leaving a deep impression on anyone watching – not least the PSG players. It was one of the clearest signs yet that Emery had dragged Villa into the company of Europe’s heavyweights, not as guests, but as genuine contenders.

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 very different Villa, same hard edge

The Villa that walk out in Salzburg will look very different to the one that pushed PSG to the brink 484 days ago.

Morgan Rogers, Lucas Digne and Youri Tielemans have been sold. Amadou Onana is out until next year. Boubacar Kamara is back in the squad but only just returning from the serious knee injury he suffered in January.

Key pillars are missing too. Emi Martinez, Ezri Konsa and Ollie Watkins have all been given a month off after their World Cup exertions and have not travelled. The spine that defined so much of last season’s resilience and punch will be watching from afar.

The numbers are stark. Only four of the starters from that quarter-final are likely to begin here. Five of the substitutes that night have also moved on. For a team that has become synonymous with continuity under Emery, this is a jolt.

McGinn, who has lived every twist of Villa’s transformation over the past eight years, knows how much has shifted.

“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.”

That is the backdrop to Salzburg: a coach chasing the one European night that keeps slipping away, a club reshaped but still driving upwards, and a PSG side wary because they have already felt the heat of Emery’s Villa once.

For some, it is only the Super Cup. For Emery, it is a chance to close a circle that has been open for far too long.