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That’s also precisely why Emery’s feat in returning Villa to this stage, for the first time since they were European champions, requires more recognition now that they're actually prepare for a first match away to Young Boys of Berne. It wasn’t just winning the trophy again that would have been considered a joke, after all. So was the very idea of Villa qualifying. It would have been preposterous.

It isn’t the first time they’ve faced that sort of attitude, of course. Back before that 1982 final against Bayern Munich, the great German club that Villa symbolically face in this group stage, opposition defender Wolfgang Dremmler came out with the following.