Aston Villa have one foot in Champions League quarter-final; why can’t they go all the way?

Aston Villa were eight minutes away from drawing their Champions League last 16 first leg away to Club Brugge, which would have been just fine, but they have left Belgium with one foot in the quarters thanks to two late goals.

It is only the third time Aston Villa have enjoyed a campaign in Europe’s premier competition. In the other two, they won the whole thing in 1982 and reached the last eight a year later, which is where they are surely going now after a huge 3-1 victory on Tuesday evening.

Villa’s Champions League form has been exceptional. They defied expectations to finish in the top eight of the league phase, avoiding the stress of a play-off, and are continuing this incredible story.

Not only have they not played in the European Cup/Champions League for over four decades, but they survived Premier League relegation by one point in 2020 and hadn’t finished in the top half for eight consecutive seasons until they were rescued by Unai Emery after the shambles that was Steven Gerrard’s tenure.

That seventh-place finish got the Villans in the Europa Conference League, which they really ought to have won like West Ham, but qualifying for this season’s Champions League via the Premier League was a nice way to make up for their failure in that competition.

It is a wonderful story and along with some heavy spending and clever recruitment, it really all comes down to Emery.

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The Spaniard took Villarreal to an unlikely Champions League semi-final in 2021/22, losing to Liverpool, who Villa might face in the last eight three years later. F***ing mental, really.

Villarreal downed Bayern Munich and Juventus before falling to Jurgen Klopp’s Reds and Aston Villa faced two of those in this season’s league phase, beating the Germans and drawing against the Italians.

Their first test in the knockout stage was a lot weaker on paper than the Juventus side Emery’s Villarreal beat 4-1 on aggregate but this Brugge team looked impressive against Manchester City, beat Villa, drew against Juventus and beat Sporting in the league phase before smashing a very handy Atalanta side to progress to the last 16.

Both teams gave us an entertaining first half on Tuesday and when the game looked like petering out to a 1-1 draw both would have been content with, Brugge self-destructed.

After a tidy Leon Bailey opener and Maxim De Cuyper equaliser – reminiscent of Bruno Fernandes’ finish against Fulham – in the first 12 minutes, it felt like we were about to see a classic and the great pace did not die down until half-time.

It then became rather dull and both sides appeared to be settling for a draw. One man who wouldn’t was Brugge centre-back Brandon Mechele, who scored an own goal with eight minutes remaining. It was a great finish, to be fair to him, giving former Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet no chance.

Brugge would fancy their chances of progressing at only one goal down but it was soon two when exciting attacker Christos Tzolis gave away a penalty for a foul on substitute Matty Cash.

Youri Tielemans did that cringe thing when a player holds onto the ball and hands it over to the actual penalty taker, which was Marco Asensio. The Spaniard stepped up and confidently scored despite slipping. That is now five goals in seven games for his new club.

Asensio’s link-up with fellow January loan signing Marcus Rashford has been a joy to see but they did not share the pitch at any point on Tuesday. You can sing about tactics and this and that as much as you like but it turned out being a quadruple substitution from Emery that inspired the two-goal victory.

Asensio and Cash were the architects of the third goal and Morgan Rogers – who started – was the player whose cross was turned in by Mechele. Rogers easily could have been one of the four players hooked on minute 64 but an assertive performance convinced Emery to keep him on; what a decision that turned out to be.

Rogers’ powerful running and ability to stay on his feet was a true driving force in a difficult match, yet his end product left a lot to be desired. The irony is that a lost cross was his most crucial contribution of the evening.

He has been a ridiculously successful signing and arguably Villa’s best player this season. He will be crucial again when the Midlands side look to see off Brugge next Wednesday.

You have to fancy Villa to get the job done. Emery is a fantastic head coach but he excels in knockout football, as most notably displayed by his three Europa League victories with Sevilla.

They have one foot firmly in the quarter-final and will face Liverpool or Paris Saint-Germain if they don’t bottle it. There is honestly no reason to rule them out against either – they have barely put a foot wrong in the Champions League this season.

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