This Tuesday at 9pm (CET), Paris Saint-Germain take on Aston Villa at Villa Park in the second leg of their Champions League 2024-2025 quarter-final (Paris won 3-1 in the first leg). In a press conference, Villans coach Unai Emery spoke about the match and the Parisian opponent.
Emery “PSG have experienced players who know how to play away, they do it in France and in Europe”
“Will the score from the first leg (1-3) change your plan, at least initially ?
It depends. The first leg made a difference, and we have to accept what happened, but we weren’t far off getting a result more in line with our expectations. At 2-1 we needed to win, but now we need to score another goal.
Does the atmosphere in your stadium and the advantage of playing at home count as much as before?
PSG have experienced players who know how to play away, they do it in France and in Europe. We have that experience too. But if we connect with our fans, if we give them a lot of positive energy, and if we do everything right on the pitch, the fans will add their energy to ours, and will help us a lot.
Emery “I don’t know what impact the fans have on other teams, but on us, it’s very important”
It’s always like that when we play at home. There’s always this positive energy for us. I don’t know what impact the fans have on other teams, but it’s very important for us.
What ingredients will you need to turn things around?
We have to stick to our plan as much as possible and be protagonists. In the first leg, the Parisians showed some things, but we also showed our ability to be competitive at this level, to be close to them.
And tomorrow (Tuesday), tactically, we’re going to try to be the best we can be, collectively. We have to believe in ourselves, respect them, but use Villa Park as a fortress, our home, and share this great match with our supporters.
Emery “You can look at it another way: they don’t concede many, concede very few corners, for example”
Set-pieces are sometimes a weakness for PSG. Is that your opinion too ?
You could look at it another way: they don’t concede many, and they concede very few corners, for example. And that’s the first way they defend well from set-pieces…”, comments relayed by L’Equipe.
Emery knows soccer well enough not to get too carried away, but to leave the doors open for qualification. PSG know what they have to do: win, as they have done most of the time since the start of the season. That’s the best way to move forward without getting scared.
Aston Villa are a formidable team at home, and there’s no doubt that this second leg will be completely different. The players wanted a tighter scoreline in the first leg, but we’ll have to make do with two goals up. While this may not be an impossible challenge in itself, what is a little more difficult is to score twice without conceding against this PSG team, while opening up the game to believe in it.
The Parisians have been warned: we’ll need to be at our usual level to get through. Nobody is safe from a match without a goal. We’ll have to make the best of things and do our utmost to win again and again. The Parisians are hungry, they want their semi-final and why not go all the way. The road is narrowing, the feat is approaching, but we mustn’t play the game before it’s begun.
