From 16th place to a first European trophy in 44 years: Aston Villa's incredible transformation under Unai Emery

Unai Emery wins the Europa League. It's just what he does.

The 54-year-old manager claimed his fifth Europa League winners medal on Wednesday, leading Aston Villa to their first title in the competition and their first contintental trophy since their famous European Cup win in 1982.

Wednesday's final, a 3-0 demolition of German outfit SC Freiburg in Istanbul, capped a stunning rise to prominence for the Villans under Emery, who arrived in Birmingham nearly four years ago tasked with fixing a broken club that was flirting with relegation.

And fix it he did, immediately changing the culture at Villa Park and leading the team out of the doldrums to the tune of 15 wins from his first 25 Premier League matches after taking over in November 2022. The Lions, mired in 16th place when the Spaniard took over the reins, shot up the standings all the way to seventh, signalling the potential of the club under their new boss.

But the work only got started there. In his first summer in charge, Emery embarked on wholesale changes to the squad, transferring or loaning out a staggering 39 players across all levels of the club — including big names such as Philippe Coutinho, Bertrand Traoré and Ashley Young — while bringing in 16 new faces to Villa Park.

Some of the players who joined Villa in the summer of 2023 were on the field for Wednesday's victory. Pau Torres, a £31.5 million signing from Villarreal, started in central defence and helped keep the clean sheet. Youri Tielemans and Morgan Rogers, who arrived from Leicester City and Middlesbrough, respectively, each scored a goal as the Villans ran rampant over their shell-shocked Bundesliga opponents.

Additionally, seven of Villa's starting XI on Wednesday — Emi Martinez, Matty Cash, Ezri Konsa, Lucas Digne, John McGinn, Emiliano Buendía and Ollie Watkins — were already at the club when Emery arrived in 2022. Victor Lindelof, who arrived at Villa Park in September after eight seasons with Manchester United, was the only starting player who was not part of the Birmingham club before this season.

That 10 of the 11 starters in Villa's biggest victory in decades have been playing under Emery since his first full season in charge speaks volumes about the culture change he implemented almost immediately after he signed on. He assessed what talent he had, got rid of the rest, added some targeted signings and built the team on that foundation.

Emery's faith in those players has now been paid back in full.

"It's hard to put into words, we've worked so hard for this," Rogers told TNT Sports immediately after the final whistle. "We've delivered and come through.

"It's a great moment for the fans, great for the club. We'll go down in history."

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There's still work to be done for Emery and Villa, of course. The club have finished in seventh, fourth and sixth place in the Premier League under the former Arsenal, PSG and Villarreal boss, and they head into the final matchday of the season in fourth place once again. A return to the Champions League beckons this fall, when the Villans will try to top the quarter-final exit they had in 2025.

And a real, sustained run at the Premier League title is still a goal of the club's after their flirtation with the top of the table earlier in the current campaign.

But for now Villa can revel in the tangible strides they've made under one of Europe's finest managers, who has turned the club from an also-ran into a champion.

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