Aston Villa’s 3-0 win over 10-man Club Brugge on Wednesday confirmed the English Premier League outfit’s UEFA Champions League quarterfinal date with Paris Saint-Germain thanks to a 6-1 aggregate success just 24 hours after the French giants did the unthinkable and knocked Liverpool out at Anfield. On paper at least, Luis Enrique’s side will be strong favorites to progress through their final eight tie with Unai Emery’s men which creates an interesting dynamic ahead of these two April matchups.
Paris cannot be thought of as underdogs anymore having ousted favorites Liverpool on penalties after dominating the Reds over two superb legs of top-quality soccer which was worthy of the latter stages of the competition and not just the round of 16. It ends PSG’s run of being the plucky outsiders which Luis Enrique’s men reverted to when their early league phase form took a dive with losses away at Arsenal and Bayern Munich as well as a home defeat to Atletico Madrid having come into this year’s edition as previous semifinalists.
PSG against Villa over two legs will throw up some fascinating reunions and none more so that Emery returning to Paris where he was once in charge before welcoming his ex-employers to Birmingham where he has rebuilt the Villans into a genuine force to be reckoned with domestically and in Europe. There is also the not-insignificant topic of Marco Asensio to consider as well as Lucas Digne when these two met but Emry is the obvious starting point when looking ahead to the game.
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Unai Emery vs. Luis Enrique
La Remontada was PSG’s darkest hour in European competition and it happened on Emery’s watch – the Ligue 1 giants smashed Barcelona in Paris only to utterly capitulate in Catalonia as Neymar-inspired Barca pulled off the most unlikely of comebacks. On that fateful day at Camp Nou, Luis Enrique was Blaugrana boss with Emery his opposite number and it is ironic that one of the man responsible for such a traumatic event for Paris should be the man overseeing the latest stage of their continental rehabilitation. Although there is nowhere near the same level of bitterness towards PSG as there was towards Arsenal, Emery has a penchant for haunting his former clubs and he would dearly love to engineer another shock result here.
Marco Asensio
Another fascinating figure will be Asensio facing PSG as a Villa player on loan from Les Parisiens with the Spain international having hit a stunning seven goals since his January arrival at Villa Park on loan for the rest of this season. The 29-year-old is enjoying a new lease of life alongside Marcus Rashford in Birmingham under Emery’s astute leadership and his goals have the potential to shape the rest of this campaign which could yet result in UCL re-qualification and possibly even FA Cup success with a Champions League quarterfinal outing already beyond the most lofty of expectations at the start of this campaign at Villa Park.
Lucas Digne
There is also another figure of interest in the Villa defense with Lucas Digne an ex-PSG player who found himself frustrated behind the evergreen Maxwell earlier in his career and eventually had to move away to develop into the player that he now is for club and country. The Frenchman is influential in Emery’s Villans getting forward and whipping balls into the box with set pieces also one of Digne’s specialties which often comes to the fore.
Although PSG are overwhelming favorites on paper, Villa are more capable of springing a surprise or two and it is something that Emery specializes in when going up against his former clubs — just ask Arsenal since he has taken over in Birmingham and haunted the Gunners with a few perfect tactical setups to claim vital points for the Villans’ resurgence while also inflicting damaging losses on the Londoners. Villa have nothing to lose now but everything to gain while PSG have gone from having nothing to lose to suddenly being expected to advance so the dynamic shift is certainly something to be wary of as Emery sets about setting up a gameplan that could derail Luis Enrique’s Parisiens just as they have hit ominous form.
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