It is reasonable to wonder how on earth we got here. Five years ago had a crystal ball forecast Ajax versus Aston Villa in the Uefa Europa Conference League, it would have led to three questions asked with increasing incredulity.
Ajax are playing in a third-tier European competition? Aston Villa are playing in a third-tier European competition? There’s a third-tier European competition?
Back in 2019, there was not a month apart between Ajax’s Champions League semi-final second leg with Tottenham, and Aston Villa’s play-off final against Derby County. Just 19 days, in fact.
On 8 May that year Ajax were seconds away from the Champions League final before the swing of Lucas Moura’s left leg swayed a famous tie in Tottenham’s favour, while come 27 May, Villa returned to the Premier League when beating Derby 2-1 at Wembley after enjoying a late surge up the Championship table.
A lot can happen in five years. Dean Smith and Steven Gerrard have occupied and left the Villa dugout, Jack Grealish departed for a British record fee, and while the club’s hierarchy invested heavily to maintain this European dream – now a fresh concern after posting £120m losses for 2022-23 – it was only once Unai Emery arrived did the hopes look as though they could become a reality.
Remarkably, it was the eventuality of a season that started with Gerrard and jeers, and it has got even better. This season, a Champions League place is in their hands with 11 league games remaining.
It means, as Villa fans descend on Amsterdam for a knockout European tie at the Johan Cruyff Arena on Thursday, it will not only trump the trips to Alkmaar, Edinburgh, Mostar and Warsaw so far this season, but give them a taste for what could be around the corner.
Facing the four-time European Cup winners certainly whets that Champions League appetite, but it is on Emery to handle these loftier expectations and tackle the task ahead. Difficult, given a meeting with fifth-placed Spurs is around the corner on Sunday, sandwiched between this round-of-16 tie.
It is a defining week in Villa’s season, therefore, and also a full-circle moment back to the last era their supporters will most fondly remember, the nearly years under Martin O’Neill.
In 2008-09, their last proper European campaign – having exited the Europa League play-offs the next two seasons before the group stages – they hosted Ajax in the Uefa Cup and beat a side featuring a 21-year-old Luis Suarez 2-1.
Villa would go on to exit the Uefa Cup in the round of 32, O’Neill gambling on their top-four aspirations by fielding a weakened side against CSKA Moscow. It didn’t pay off, as Villa ended up finishing sixth.
“That’s the big shame, and the comparison I’ve drawn,” Curtis Davies, a Villa player at the time who featured against Ajax, tells i.
The comparisons are clear. Villa in a European competition while currently fourth, a tricky balance that brings with it challenges Davies knows all too well.
“I see this current side as more equipped for it, whenever I’ve been asked about if Villa can finish in the top four, it’s not that I don’t think they can, they’ve got the quality and since Emery arrived the results speak for themselves,” adds Davies.
“But while you’re chasing the top four, with this European distraction, the further they go, if they were to get a significant injury – beyond Tyrone Mings and Emi Buendia already – to possibly Ollie Watkins or John McGinn, the worry would be that the European or league form dips away.
“They are though in the box seat. When we were fighting for fourth, we used a lot of the same players, 13 or 14, and eventually both the legs and mind get fatigued. When we ended up falling away we just couldn’t recover from it.
“We played a weakened side in Moscow, a few debuts, it shows where we were really. The fact we did that and ended up drawing with Stoke and losing to Chelsea, we got rocked big time, thinking we had basically conceded the fact we’re going to go out of the cup to improve our chances in the league, and then that happened.
“The record for the rest of the season was poor, it was unfortunate we couldn’t recover. All the hard work until February, sitting in pole position, but Arsenal had a wonderful squad and could rotate, changing three or four internationals for another three or four internationals. That was the difference, and where we fell short. But I do think this Villa are a different animal.”
And while there are similarities between O’Neill and Emery, Davies believes the squad at the latter’s disposal can handle the mission ahead.
“Similarities, Emery as much as possible likes to keep the same XI as often as possible,” says Davies.
“He hasn’t been too technical resting and rotating, beyond the injuries, and what Martin used to do, he had his XI and then three or four others that if he put in one or two at a time, you wouldn’t notice much of a difference. That’s what Unai Emery has, a most-trusted XI.
“The difference I can say, with all due respect to when we played, this current team is more geared up for it and ready for that European adventure with the way that they play and approach games – the style.
“Us as a team, we were good in the league, robust and solid, with good pace on counters, but in European football against slower, more stubborn teams, the way Villa play now – their tempo – they’re a lot better setup to win those games than we were.
“We were good players. When the chips were down we looked to Ash[ley Young] or Gabby [Agbonlahor] to make something happen, with Gareth [Barry] the conductor in the middle, and that’s how it was.”
Ajax, meanwhile, have largely been a picture of consistency, crowned either Eredivisie champions or finishing runners-up every season since 2009-10. The 2019-20 Covid campaign, where they were first when the Dutch season ended early, does not technically count, but this run of first or second was only really ended last season – a third-place finish that resulted in Europa League football.
For a club so used to competing at the top, that was bad, but it got worse, record levels worse, the club sinking to 18th, bottom, in October – their lowest position ever in the Eredivisie – after sacking Maurice Steijn when they were 17th.
John van ’t Schip has somewhat calmed the waters since, bringing them back up to fifth, but they are 17 points off a Champions League place with just 10 games to go.
“The problems of this season were already present last season,” Sander Zeldenrijk, chief-editor of the monthly magazine Ajax Life, tells i.
Indeed, Zeldenrijk stresses the problems run back to 2018-19, when their run to the Champions League semis inevitably thrust that squad into the shop window. Ajax were powerless to prevent Frenkie de Jong and Matthijs de Ligt from departing given the money on offer – De Jong joined Barcelona for £65m, De Ligt went to Juventus for £67.5m.
The pattern has repeated, albeit without the club making Champions League headlines, with all three of their top scorers the past three seasons – Dusan Tadic, Sebastien Haller and Mohammed Kudus – having moved on.
Erik ten Hag took Antony and Lisandro Martinez with him to Manchester United in 2022, while the Premier League has continued to poach their best players; Kudus joined by Edson Alvarez in moving to West Ham, while Jurrien Timber signed for Arsenal and Calvin Bassey went to Fulham.
And this is what stings. Selling to Barca, Juve and Arsenal is one thing, but the fact a club of Ajax’s stature on the European stage are now at the behest of the majority of Premier League clubs, is suddenly a sign of the times.
They have been torn apart by some, and then for good measure were beaten by Brighton home and away in the Europa League group stages, a reminder of this gulf – and partly why they find themselves in the third tier of a European competition.
It is also why Villa, the 2019 Championship play-off winners, are favourites to beat the 2019 Champions League semi-finalists over the course of these two legs.
“It’s no surprise, not for those who follow the club since the team was gutted after 2018-19,” Zeldenrijk adds.
“Personally, I think the financial gap with clubs from the Premier League should be made smaller, but I don’t know how in short.
“Problems for Ajax and all other clubs ranked outside the top five European leagues started when the Premier League was founded, I guess. That’s what made the European journey in 2018-19 so nice.
“Ajax gave hope to all other clubs in smaller leagues. They woke up all fans from the predictable world of football. This season Brighton were better, a majority of people expect Aston Villa will also be better, and I would not be surprised if there will be another smaller name from the Premier League which can go far in Europe in the future.”
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