Unai Emery's Quest for the Elusive Super Cup
Unai Emery chases the one that keeps getting away.
The Aston Villa manager has built an empire in the Europa League, lifting that trophy five times and most recently ending Villa’s 30-year wait for silverware with victory over Freiburg in Istanbul in May. Yet the Super Cup, the small but stubborn gap on his European résumé, still refuses to fall into line.
On Wednesday night in Salzburg, against Paris St-Germain, he gets another crack at it. His fourth.
The one trophy that won’t bend
Emery has stared this game in the face before and walked away empty-handed. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea – the names on the other side of the pitch read like a roll call of European royalty, and every time they have barred his path.
Cristiano Ronaldo struck twice as Real beat his Sevilla side in 2014. A year later, Lionel Messi dragged Barcelona through an extraordinary 5-4 extra-time win, another Super Cup slipping through Emery’s fingers. By the time Sevilla lost to Real again in 2016, he had already gone to PSG. The chance to put that right passed without him even being in the dugout.
Then came 2021. Villarreal pushed Chelsea all the way in Dublin, only to lose on penalties. Another near-miss. Another medal that wasn’t.
For a coach as obsessive and meticulous as Emery, those nights do not simply fade into the background. They sit there. They itch.
This week, in the shadow of the Alps, the competition he has never quite mastered comes back around.
A ‘glorified friendly’ or something more?
The Super Cup has always lived in a strange space. Like the Community Shield, it is often dismissed as a glamorous curtain-raiser, a pre-season showpiece with a trophy attached. The stands are full, the cameras are on, but the narrative often comes with an asterisk.
Emery doesn’t talk like a man turning up for a friendly.
“He was reminding me last week,” he said with a nod towards captain John McGinn, who had brought up the Chelsea defeat. The Villa manager knows exactly what this game represents.
“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.”
The setting helps. Red Bull Arena, 6,000 Villa fans making the trip, PSG on the opposite bench – and not just any PSG, but the back-to-back Champions League winners. If this is a friendly, it is one dressed in full evening wear.
Carlo Ancelotti sits out in front with five Super Cups – two with AC Milan, three with Real Madrid. Pep Guardiola lurks just behind on four. Emery, with his Europa League crown polished once more, is still trying to step through that particular door.
PSG remember Birmingham
For PSG, the game is no afterthought either. The club have spent years trying to harden their image in Europe, to move from star-studded project to ruthless, serial winners. Nights like this help write that story.
Midfielder Vitinha, already a four-time Ligue 1 champion, brushed off any suggestion that this might be treated as a warm-up exercise, even if he admitted PSG’s “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,” he said.
Defender Marquinhos was just as clear. PSG, who were irritated enough by the size of their dressing room at Red Bull Arena that Uefa handed them an extra one, are not in Austria to coast.
“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.”
They also know exactly what Aston Villa can do when the temperature rises. This is a rerun of last season’s Champions League quarter-final, a tie that briefly threatened to become one of the great shocks of the modern era.
Villa arrived at Villa Park 3-1 down from the first leg in Paris. When PSG raced into a 2-0 lead in Birmingham to go 5-1 up on aggregate, it looked done. Emery’s side refused to accept that script. They dragged the game back, surged to a 3-2 win on the night, and went out 5-4 overall with their reputation sharply enhanced.
“It was such a difficult test, especially the second half,” Vitinha recalled. PSG felt that storm. They know it can come again.
“We'll be ready but we're conscious of how difficult it's going to be.”
A new-look Villa, same hard edge
The Villa that walk out in Salzburg will not be quite the same animal that tore into PSG in that second half 484 days ago.
Morgan Rogers, Lucas Digne and Youri Tielemans have all moved on. Amadou Onana is sidelined until next year. Boubacar Kamara is back in the squad but only just returning from a serious knee injury suffered in January.
Then there is the spine that isn’t even in Austria. Emi Martinez, Ezri Konsa and Ollie Watkins have been given a month off by Emery after their World Cup exertions and have not travelled.
The result? Villa could start with only four of the XI who lined up against PSG in that quarter-final. Five of the substitutes from that night have also left the club. For a team that has come to be defined by its consistency under Emery, the churn is striking.
“A lot has changed in the eight years I've been here,” McGinn admitted.
He has seen the club slide, rebuild and surge again. The current phase feels different – not just survival, not just respectability, but genuine ambition.
“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 as Emery walks back into a game that has hurt him before. A reshaped squad, a club growing into its new status, a manager still chasing the one European night that has never quite gone his way.
On Wednesday in Salzburg, against his former club and Europe’s current benchmark, he gets another chance to change that story.
