Tielemans, Buendía, Rogers: Aston Villa lift the Europa League with a 3-0 in Istanbul
Aston Villa lifted the Europa League in Istanbul on Wednesday night, brushing past Freiburg 3-0 at Beşiktaş Park to end a 30-year wait for a major trophy and a 44-year wait for European silverware.
Three goals between the 41st minute and the 58th settled it before Freiburg, in their first European final, had a chance to make it competitive.
Tielemans cracks it open
The opener came in the 41st minute and it came from a short corner. Morgan Rogers worked space on the right, looked up and floated a delivery to the edge of the box. Youri Tielemans met it on the volley and steered the ball past Noah Atubolu with a clean strike across the goalkeeper. Villa had spent the first half pressing without quite breaking through, and the Belgian's finish felt like reward for that pressure.
Deep into first-half stoppage time, the lead doubled. Emiliano Buendía took the ball just outside the area, shifted it onto his left foot and bent a strike into the top corner. It was the last kick of the half, and Freiburg went down the tunnel two down and staring at a final already drifting away from them.
Rogers seals it
Freiburg needed a fast start to the second half and never got one. In the 58th minute Buendía picked the ball up on the left, jinked past his marker and rolled it across the face of goal. Rogers, sprinting in at the near post, only had to apply the finish. Three-nil and done. Buendía would walk off with the man-of-the-match award; Rogers had a goal and an assist to go with the cross that set up the opener.
From there Villa played the clock down. Freiburg pushed bodies forward through the closing 20 minutes but never really got a chance worth taking, and Villa saw the game out without losing their shape.
Emery's fifth
For Unai Emery, this is a fifth Europa League title. Three of them came with Sevilla, one with Villarreal, and now this one with Villa. No coach had won the competition with three different clubs before. The trophy also takes Emery to five major continental titles overall. Only Giovanni Trapattoni, José Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti have managed that. The Champions League is still the one missing from his cabinet, but in this particular trophy his record now sits clear of the field.
For Villa, the timeline tells the story. Their last European trophy was the 1982 European Cup. Their last major honour was the 1996 League Cup. Three decades of near-misses end here, in Istanbul, with a 3-0 win in a final that, for once, never felt in doubt.
Freiburg, who beat RB Leipzig 4-1 on the Bundesliga's final day to claim a seventh-place Conference League spot, return to domestic life having come further in Europe than any previous side from the Black Forest. The final itself got away from them, but the season they had to get here will not be quickly forgotten.
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