Football journalist and author Guillem Balagué discusses the work of Unai Emery at Aston Villa and how he has transformed the club.
In football, as in life, it is important that you know your place.
For Aston Villa head coach Unai Emery, European football is simply home. The Basque tactician has steered his club into continental competition in every single season he has been in charge from the start -17 consecutive campaigns without exception. Find me another manager who can say that.
Along the way, four Europa League titles, three in a row with Sevilla and one with Villarreal, the only major trophy won by the Castellon club in its entire history, as well as a UEFA Europa League runners up spot with Arsenal and a UEFA Champions League semi final with Villarreal.
Aston Villa’s 7-1 demolition of Bologna in last week’s Europa League quarter final show that it’s business as usual. Now only Nottingham Forest stand between them and place for Villa in their first European final for 44 years.
But Emery is under no illusions. He will leave nothing to chance. A devout advocate of the five P principle (Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance) on the morning of the club’s second leg match against Bologna he showed and hour and 15 minutes of footage from the Lille home game and then 60 minutes of the first leg against Bologna to see how the key moments in that match were managed.
In the end what might have seemed a stroll in the park was the result of meticulous preparation against a side that in their 14 games in Europe this season had only lost three times, all of them against Emery’s Villa.
Unai knows better than most how thin the line between success and failure can be.
A lack of revenue can sometimes force you into making decisions that you might not have made in a more financially favourable atmosphere. In the minefield that is transfer negotiations sometimes the market runs away from you, other times you are ahead of the game. In its simplest sense, last summer’s was not the window that neither Villa nor Unai wanted.
A poor start to the season followed, affected by expectations and the disappointment of missing UEFA Champions League qualification. Then just three points, no wins and just a single goal from their first five games was as unwelcome as it was unexpected.
But 12 victories from their next 13 games (the only reversal being a 2-0 defeat at Liverpool) saw them climb from 18th to 3rd and served as stark proof that rumours of their demise, some coming surprisingly from Villa supporters, were well and truly exaggerated. Villa’s rise, started with the arrival of Unai, continued. Their 2-1 win over Chelsea on December 27 sealed an eight game winning run, the club’s longest top flight winning streak in 115 years.
Just as well because a sudden spate of unwelcome injuries to key players like Kamara, McGinn and Tielemans put the club back on board the roller coaster losing six of the next 12 games and amassing just 12pts out of a possible 36. What hurt Unai and his staff as much as the injuries being suffered was losing the reliability at home that the club had built up. From having established itself as something of a fortress, Villa Park began to look distinctly creaky following home defeats by the likes of Everton, Brentford and Chelsea as well as a draw against Leeds United. Just one point from what many might have considered an attainable 12.
No season is all plain sailing, there are many tough moments especially when you are not winning. Everything is questioned: the decisions, the work, whether the players are prepared for that path or that level of demand… Being a top-level coach means spending 24 hours a day looking for solutions, win or lose. And when the results aren't there, there are more doubts. And when there are defeats, there's worry. Confidence isn't infinite; it has to be cultivated, from the coach to the players and vice versa.
At times Unai juggled the need to look to reduce the pressure, other times he looked to give the players more initiative, creating a balancing act between providing the energy and lowering the intensity according to the situation he sees before him.
But every week, every day, every talk, every video, every pre- and post-match, the talk before going onto the field, every moment with the players… it's a learning experience. And there's no single path.
It is a process, a work in progress. And the win over Bologna was definitely one of the good days. Unai likes to hear from the players their experiences while he has been in charge, and himself takes the group back to the European trips. “Do you remember, guys, that first game against Zrinjski Mostar? Where does your mind take you when you think of Bayern Munich and Paris Saint Germain?”
For Unai, his job consists of creating memories like a kid does a castle with Lego pieces. One on top of the other. And the more shared experiences, the stronger the building gets.
Fortunately Emery and Aston Villa now find themselves at a moment of very welcome stability following an unsettling time during February and March where their depleted side struggled to minimise the impact created by the loss of those key players. A win against West Ham and a draw against Nottingham Forest has gone some way to settling the ship, and it is now very much in their own hands to make it to the next step both domestically and in Europe.
As an onlooker it is always interesting to observe Unai’s perception of how things are going at the club.
It’s all about perspective.
He is not naive enough to imagine that he is currently in the situation where he could actually win the Premier League.
But that did not mean for a moment that he did not get excited when they were just a few points behind the likes of Arsenal towards the top of the table. If UEFA Champions League qualification is close, he will get excited about it and will ask everyone to do the same. But Villa cannot have the obligation to win every game.
As the former coach at Paris Saint Germain he knows there are few teams in the world - around eight perhaps - that carry with them the real obligation of having to win. For the rest these objectives are unthinkable.
Fans want a title to ‘crown’ this era. The club, the staff, the team will give it a go, of course. They dream of it, no doubt. But if the only target, or the most important target, is to get a title, imagine the frustration that will invade every changing room of the majority of teams in all divisions all over the world as not many manage to get there.
When Unai Emery was appointed as coach of Aston Villa in October 24, 2022 they were sitting in 17th place in the league table just one point and two places above the final relegation spot. Today Aston Villa are at a very minimum one of the top four teams in the Europa League. How many aren’t?
Notice we have hardly spoken of tactics, of players. The secret of this Villa side is to be found somewhere else: the key is to be ever demanding yet also be able to appreciate where you are, how far you have come. Where you belong… without stopping dreaming.
