Europa League final gives Unai Emery chance to extend remarkable record in competition

Europa League specialist Unai Emery is aiming to win the trophy for a record-extending fifth time and with a third different team.

His Aston Villa team faces Freiburg in Istanbul later on Wednesday when he can further enhance his remarkable record in the competition.

Having won Europe’s secondary trophy three years running with Sevilla from 2014-16, he then lifted it again with Villarreal in 2021.

Spot a pattern?

If his club’s fans are looking for a lucky omen, this is the third team with Villa in its name that Emery has guided to the Europa League final and perhaps the third that he will lead to glory.

Not that the Spaniard, who has been a serial winner during his coaching career, is taking anything for granted.

“I am not a ‘king’ in this competition,” he said during his pre-match news conference on Tuesday. “I am now, again, with Aston Villa in a new chapter. Everything I did is done, and of course, it’s there in that moment.

“I need to win tomorrow with the players we have now, with Aston Villa now, with the opponent we will face tomorrow now. It’s a new way, a new moment, and hopefully a new era.”

Villa, which is fourth in the Premier League and guaranteed to qualify for next season’s Champions League, is favorite to beat a Freiburg team that is seventh in the Bundesliga and 10 years ago was playing in Germany’s second division.

This is its first European final.

“It is very special,” Freiburg coach Julian Schuster said. “I have so much confidence in my team, and they give me that belief because there’s so much quality. I am not nervous, we have the confidence we need to play a great team and a great coach tomorrow.”

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James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer