Unai Emery Aims for Super Cup Glory Against PSG
Unai Emery has built an empire in the Europa League. Five titles, the latest with Aston Villa in May, when Freiburg were swept aside in Istanbul and a 30-year wait for silverware in Birmingham finally snapped.
Yet one piece keeps slipping through his fingers.
The Super Cup has become his blind spot. On Wednesday night in Salzburg, against Champions League winners Paris St-Germain, Emery gets a fourth crack at a competition that has tormented him more than any elite manager would care to admit.
The one line missing from the CV
Emery is a perfectionist. He admitted as much last season when he set Aston Villa the target of finishing third in the Premier League, not simply qualifying for the Champions League. They finished fourth. A triumph by almost any measure. For him, a small but sharp irritation.
The Super Cup lives in that same space. Win it and it’s a line on the CV, another medal, another photograph with a trophy. Lose it and people shrug, file it under “glorified friendly”, and move on. Emery doesn’t shrug.
His record in the game is brutal. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea. Three giants, three defeats. Cristiano Ronaldo sank his Sevilla side in 2014. A year later, a Lionel Messi-inspired Barcelona edged a 5-4 extra-time thriller. In 2021, with Villarreal, he went the distance with Chelsea in Dublin, only to lose on penalties.
By the time Sevilla lost the 2016 edition to Real, Emery had already gone to PSG. The competition carried on without him. The itch remained.
Now, in Austria, at Red Bull Arena, he walks back into it with 6,000 Villa fans behind him and his former club in front of him.
“He was reminding me last week,” Emery said with a nod towards captain John McGinn, who had brought up that Chelsea defeat. The coach didn’t need the reminder. “Of course, it’s an opportunity. A trophy is something that can give us a special moment. To play for trophies is, as a professional, our objective.”
He knows PSG are favourites. He said it. But he also framed the night exactly as he likes it: a test.
“I am looking forward to playing, how we can test this match against PSG with our capacity? As a coach, as a player, as a club, it's a trophy. It's one thing that makes us proud of how we are and how we arrive here.”
Is it really just a friendly?
The debate circles this game every year. Is it a serious title or a pre-season showpiece with a shiny cup at the end? The Community Shield between Arsenal and Manchester City on Sunday stirred the same conversation.
Carlo Ancelotti has never treated it lightly. He has five Super Cups – two with AC Milan, three with Real Madrid – more than anyone in history. Pep Guardiola sits one behind with four of his own from Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. These are not managers who waste energy on exhibition matches.
Ancelotti’s third triumph came at Emery’s expense, when Real beat Sevilla in 2014. Another scar, another reminder of where Emery wants to be judged.
PSG, for their part, insist they see it as a genuine prize. Vitinha, a four-time Ligue 1 winner and now part of a back-to-back Champions League-winning squad, dismissed any idea that the French champions will stroll through Salzburg.
“We're still hungry for victories, trophies. It's very difficult to maintain those levels but we're still hungry,” the Portugal midfielder said, acknowledging only that PSG’s pre-season “was a little short”.
Marquinhos echoed the message. The defender, part of so many of PSG’s domestic triumphs, knows the danger of complacency.
“Just because we've won things these past seasons, that doesn't mean it's easy. We know there'll be plenty of obstacles,” he said. “Personally, I want more, and each player in the squad is like that. We've all worked to get here, to arrive in the best condition.”
PSG were unhappy enough with the size of their dressing room at Red Bull Arena that Uefa provided an additional one. Details matter to them. So do trophies.
A rematch with history attached
This is not just a Super Cup. It is a rerun of one of last season’s most compelling Champions League ties.
In April 2025, Villa walked into Parc des Princes for a quarter-final first leg and left 3-1 down. When PSG then surged into a 2-0 lead in Birmingham, stretching the aggregate score to 5-1, the tie looked dead.
Villa refused to accept the script.
They roared back. Three goals, a 3-2 win on the night, and a 5-4 aggregate exit that felt, in its own way, like a statement. Under Emery, Aston Villa had gone toe-to-toe with Europe’s aristocracy and forced them to sweat.
Vitinha has not forgotten.
“It was such a difficult test, especially the second half,” he admitted. “We'll be ready but we're conscious of how difficult it's going to be.”
The memory lingers for Villa too. That night became a reference point: proof that Emery had transformed them from hopeful upstarts into a side that could live in that company.
A very different Villa
Yet the team that walks out in Salzburg will not look much like the one that rattled PSG in Birmingham just 484 days ago.
Morgan Rogers has gone. Lucas Digne too. Youri Tielemans has moved on. Amadou Onana, a key piece in midfield, is sidelined until next year. Boubacar Kamara is back in the squad, but only just returning from a serious knee injury that wrecked his season in January.
The spine that defined last year’s run has shifted. Even the World Cup has played its part. Emi Martinez, Ezri Konsa and Ollie Watkins have all been left at home, Emery granting them a month off after their summer exertions.
The result? There is a realistic scenario in which only four of the starters from that quarter-final second leg begin this Super Cup. Five of the substitutes from that night no longer wear claret and blue.
For a club that has felt so stable, so carefully constructed under Emery, the turnover is striking.
McGinn has lived it all.
“A lot has changed in the eight years I've been here,” the captain said. When he arrived, Villa were a club trying to remember what they used to be. Now they are trying to define what they can become.
“When you are signing the best young English talent and players are performing at the highest level there will be interest,” he added. That is the new reality: success invites predators.
McGinn insists Villa are built to withstand it.
“We have a structure in place, standards and rules which have made us a success. I'm really excited about the new Aston Villa.
“We have our main core, the same manager, same methods and same desire to achieve more. A lot of people thought we reached a ceiling a couple of seasons ago and we proved them wrong.”
Emery’s edge
This is where Emery thrives. Change does not frighten him; it sharpens him. His methods, his relentless detail, his obsession with marginal gains – they are designed for nights like this, when the opposition are stronger on paper and the stakes feel slightly blurred.
For some, the Super Cup is a curtain-raiser. For Emery, it is a chance to correct a line on his record that does not fit the rest.
He has already conquered Europe’s second tier more convincingly than any manager in history. Now, against his former club and the reigning kings of the Champions League, he has a shot at a different kind of statement.
Is it a friendly? Try telling that to the man who has lost this game three times and still keeps coming back for more.
