Europa League final: Aston Villa fans find joy on the Bosphorus

“I’m sorry, sir,” the flight attendant quivered. “There is no beer left”. The 5.35pm to Istanbul departed Gatwick little over an hour earlier on Tuesday and had been drunk dry before the trolley made it 20 rows back. An unprompted survey of what everyone had paid to cram themselves onboard ensued, starting at £400 and topping four figures. A vast man in an Olof Mellberg shirt griped and a Matty Cash fan groaned, but they didn’t really care. They would have paid more if they’d had to, stood or sailed or walked. They were traversing Europe in search of joy, of connection, of glory. 

And on a calm evening that melted into chaotic night, in a technicolour city that seems to welcome you with one hand while trying to nick your wallet with the other, they found it. They found it in the ruthless beauty of the three goals; Youri Tielemans’s sweeping volley all lithe and liquid, Emi Buendía’s transcendent whip, Morgan Rogers’s clean lines and clinicality. They found it in John McGinn belly-sliding towards his howling acolytes like a gleeful otter, in Unai Emery atop Emi Martinez’s shoulders. They found it in a first trophy in 30 years – 44 in Europe – a purging and declaration, ending and beginning. 

Villa’s official Europa League final ticket allocation was just under 11,000 but at least double that descended on the Bosphorus. You heard them before you saw them, “HI HO AS-TON VILLA” winding up heaving alleys in an unmistakable Brummie brogue, a siren call to locate the nearest cold bottle of Turkish lager. Fathers and sons grinned the same grin, saying everything with glances and gulps. Four hours before kick-off, one glassy-eyed fan attempted to put out a flare like a cigarette, and promptly set his left shoe on fire. Any cab that had the temerity to interrupt this impromptu street party was redecorated with stickers proclaiming Villa the greatest team of any land, and often ended up with someone curled up in their boot. Somewhere amongst it all were Lee Hendrie and Alan Hutton, nine members of the 1982 European Cup-winning squad, and the heir to the British monarchy.  

McGinn repeatedly emphasised pre-match how much Villa respected Freiburg, which you have to file under “if it needs clarifying, it’s probably not true”. Even against a club whose modern identity is overperformance and maximised potential, Villa made the gulf in resources look even greater than it is. Villa’s revenue is almost three times Freiburg’s, yet as Rogers and Buendía twirled past Freiburg’s lumbering midfield like dolphins round a trawler, that figure could have been nine. It is easy to decry Premier League dominance of both the Europa and Conference Leagues, rooted somewhere in a uniquely English imperial guilt, but in another light this was a reminder of the extraordinary skill available. 

The impact of a trophy can often be overstated: the last four English clubs to win a major trophy after at least a decade’s wait – West Ham, Newcastle, Crystal Palace and Tottenham – will all likely finish in the bottom half of this season’s Premier League. Success does not beget success. But for Villa, this is about identity and dignity, rubber-stamping and release, fuel for legends and future generations. Local rivals Birmingham City can no longer claim to have won the most recent major silverware. Fans have something tangible to grab hold of and lean on, a moment to renew vows and reassess relationships after a decade of decayed pride. 

Eleven years ago a 32-year-old Rickie Lambert turned them down on deadline day, midway through a run of five managers in 20 months which ended with three seasons touring football outposts like Bristol City and Rotherham. They became the last serious club to employ Steven Gerrard. Emery inherited a club skirting the relegation zone yet again and will play a fourth consecutive European season next year. 

His football is about order, delegation, clarity, and this was a performance of overwhelming control punctuated by individual mastery, the Emery model made flesh in a competition with which he is synonymous, his fifth victory from six finals (with the only three top-flight European teams whose names include “Villa”). He has overseen 31 Europa League knockout matches since 2013 and won 30 of them. 

This is Emery’s story, his victory, just as it is McGinn’s, the club’s moral core and one of its great leaders, as well as a first-ballot inductee in the footballing arse hall of fame. He and Tyrone Mings also started the 2019 play-off final – McGinn scored the winner and was named man of the match. 

Beneath the euphoria is the lingering sense that this might be the peak of the Villa/Emery project, having navigated one resuscitation last September after going winless in their first six matches of the season. Six of the starting eleven have been at the club for at least five seasons, both an opportunity to develop real depth and love, and proof of their almost unilateral recent failures in recruitment and sales. Only one of the XI is younger than 28 (Rogers), five above 30. A domestic trophy is the next realistic target, but might be hampered by European competition. They will return to the Champions League, and Villa Park will rise again. But it could be another generation before they dance all night in hodgepodge streets, before they prop up bars and kebab houses until the sun rises. 

As years pass, any conflicting context will simply fade away, replaced by folklore, nostalgia shaving off the rough edges as it so often does. Ultimately sports fandom is just a vessel for joy and shared humanity, for feeling. On Wednesday morning a couple in matching home shirts prayed on the vast green carpet of the Hagia Sophia, and in the evening one fan anxiously turned out his pocket to check on his dad’s ashes.Thousands came to Istanbul in search of something and, for once, they found it.

Photograph by Neville Williams/Aston Villa FC via Getty Images