Glory comes in many forms. Perhaps the best Aston Villa could hope for on Wednesday was a game of little drama. They had effectively won the tie in Belgium last week; the last thing they wanted was to have to win it again. And yet, straightforward as it was, this was glorious, a night that in its outcome, if not the precise details, was epochal, marking Villa’s return to the European elite. Perhaps that will be a long-term state, perhaps fleeting; either way, it is significant.
There is a tide in the affairs of clubs, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. For Villa this was one of the nights fans yearn for, a night of destiny, a night to be spoken of for a long time to come. Even five years ago it would have seemed absurd that all that they had to do to reach the Champions League quarter-final was avoid a two-goal defeat against the Belgian champions.
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Club Brugge had probed enough early on to provoke concern, but the tie was effectively settled by the 16th-minute dismissal of Kyriani Sabbe for catching Marcus Rashford as he bore down on goal. It had been easy to forget in his final months at Manchester United what Rashford offers, but here was further evidence of his threat running in behind opposing defences, and perhaps also of his experience in inducing the foul. Thereafter, the Brugge threat was severely diminished, and the half-time substitutions gave Villa the cutting edge to increase their advantage.
It’s a sign of Villa’s status that one of the players they could bring on was a three-time Champions League winner in Marco Asensio. It wasn’t that Villa were exactly under pressure before his arrival, but his movement and sharpness of finishing turned what could have been an anticlimax into a glorious procession. The finish for the first of his two goals looked simple but, apparently aware of Simon Mignolet’s proximity, he lashed at the bottom of the ball to carry his shot over the keeper but under the bar. By the time he added his second just after the hour, sweeping in Rashford’s cross in confirmation of the relationship they have struck up, the mood was euphoric.
It’s 42 years since Villa reached a similar stage of Europe’s premier competition. Walk along the Trinity Road side of the ground and there are pictures of the team that beat Bayern in the 1982 European Cup final. Every fan will have seen them, the names seeping into the consciousness even for those too young to remember Rotterdam and all that. The following season, as holders, in the last 16 of the competition, Villa faced Dinamo Bucharest at home for a place in the quarter-final. Then too they carried a two-goal lead from the away leg.
Ten of the players who started that game had played in Rotterdam the previous May and the other, Colin Gibson, had been on the bench. There was Jimmy Rimmer in goal, lasting more than nine minutes this time; Ken McNaught anchoring the defence; Gordon Cowans spraying the ball around in midfield; Peter Withe leading the line; and Gary Shaw, shimmering and ethereal as he scored a hat-trick in a 4-2 win. These are among the all-time legends of the club and, while the present crop clearly don’t yet have that standing, that is the company they’re keeping.
It may be that this side ends up being outplayed by the new-look Paris Saint-Germain in the last eight just as the side of 1982-83 was outplayed at that stage by a brilliant Juventus, featuring six of Italy’s World Cup winners, plus Zbigniew Boniek and Michel Platini, but it hardly matters. The history of the occasion was acknowledged in a pre-match tifo at the Holte End depicting a lamppost illuminating various greats of the club’s past. Put yourself in the pantheon, it seemed to say; make yourself a legend like these.
They’re perhaps not quite there yet. League form has been sufficiently inconsistent that the Champions League feels like a bonus rather than an indisputable representation of quality, although that was true when Villa won the European Cup while finishing 11th in the league. The win over Bayern at the beginning of the group stage perhaps still had greater resonance, if only because it repeated the score in that 1982 European Cup final. But still, if they could somehow find a way to get past PSG next month, this side would have secured their place in the murals and in the banners of posterity.
