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Champions League, Europa, Conference League 2024-2025

Never thought a 3-1 win in the knockout rounds of the Champions league would leave me so unexcited especially with how excited I started the match, but here we are! I feel like a broken record, but my goodness, Digne should not be out there if Rashford is our left wing. Rashford was just sitting in the area that Digne likes to sit and Digne was just like, where do I go? and proceeded to be completely invisible all match. There was a giant area to attack between their defense and midfield, but Digne doesn't ever come inside, so it remained unattacked.
 
The remainder of the first leg ties
 

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Honestly watching that match yesterday, it was the first time this year I thought "we're facing a better team". Not City, not Arsenal, not Real Madrid but definitely PSG. But Alisson proved why we think he's the best keeper around, and we took the only chance we had.
What an insane match.
 
Villa cleaned up that second leg against Brugge, who made it easier by going down to ten men pretty early on. 3-0 today and 6-1 on aggregate, with the goals coming in the 2nd half after Asensio was subbed on. That sets them up for a matchup with ... ugh ... PSG, who took out Liverpool in PKs yesterday. Old boys matchup for Emery and Asensio. Dortmund and Arsenal also advanced today and Atletico/Real Madrid has moved to extra time.

For Villa, ka-ching ... another 2 matches of UCL cash is a huge for them, no matter the outcome.
 
All that Maatsen stock I bought from the other Villa fans looking to offload it is sure looking like a great purchase. Scored a goal (though I'm still not convinced that Rogers wasn't offside) and played great and is just such a better fit with Rashford especially, but also Asensio, because of his movment, creativity, and adaptability.
 
Keep in mind, they were playing against 10 at that stage and Emery was ticked off that nobody was exploiting that extra space. Asensio came in like a can opener and everything in the offensive half changed right away. With him and Rogers working as a double forward pivot, it all clicked into place.

I agree that the left side works better with Maatsen and Rashford though. I'm sure Emery has his reasons for the playing time decisions, but I'm not gonna pretend to know what they are. Good to see Torres get some minutes late in that one. Nothing against Mings but the attack is MUCH better with Torres slinging through balls.
 
Yeah, it's a double edged sword, because the attack is better with Torres obviously, but the defense is significantly better with Mings. I really like Disasi so far though and feel a lot more comfortable with him back there than Konsa who I feel has been sub par this season though has started to step it up in recent weeks possibly because of having the pressure of Disasi versus the zero pressure of Carlos.

The only playing time decision that I really just don't get from Emery is the decision to never give Rogers a day off even though he's looked like he's running on fumes the past couple weeks. Tielemans has also played just an insane amount of minutes and probably could use a break once in a while, but he plays a less active game so the fatigue effects are less subtle. Having the forced time off will be good for them both at least.
 
Champions League
Arsenal v. Real Madrid
PSG v. Villa
Barcelona v. Borussia Dortmund
Bayer Munich v. Inter

Europa League
Spurs v. Franfurt
Bodo/Glimt v. Lazio
Rangers v. Athletic Bilbao
Lyon v. Man U

Conference League
Real Betis v. Jagiellonia Bialystok (Poland)
NK Celje (Slovenia) v. Fiorentia
Legia Warszawa v. Chelsea
Djurgarden (Sweden) v. Rapid Wien
 
Damn, that stoppage time late third goal by PSG really put a damper on my mood. Going back home with a one goal deficit and some confidence in scoring first and for the most part, frustrating PSG felt really positive and like we could potentially get a result at home and make it interesting. Two goal deficit, especially with the nature of the last goal, just feels like that's the end. Even if next week is our last match in the Champions league, I feel so great about this run and how much we defied expectations.

It's weird the different level of emotions of my feelings for Villa versus my American teams where anything other than the title feels like a bit of a disappointment. Last year finishing forth and this year being competitive in the Champions league honestly are giving me as much if not more joy than the Celtics winning the title last year, just because of the different levels of expectations (and the fact that every Boston team has made winning titles almost boring... almost).
 
Yeah, that PSG team is like a freaking carving knife. Hard to feel too bad about losing to them on the road, especially given the quality of the showing otherwise. But I'd have felt a lot better coming back home with a 2-1 loss.

My only disappointment from this campaign so far is the injuries. Because I honestly feel like Villa would be right there in the UCL spots again without the ridiculous run of bad injury luck.
 
What an absolutely incredible run and so much heart and effort shown on the return leg. I do hope that ref has a hard time getting out of Birmingham and maybe has a little fear in him as well, because that was beyond a joke. McGinn willing a goal to happen entirely on his own was a thing of absolute beauty. Even with all that was against us, we created so many opportunities and I would have really liked it to have to go to extra time, but instead we weren't even given the full regulation time as the joke of a ref decided there would only somehow be three minutes of stoppage time and allowed PSG to waste two of them.
 
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