Matty Cash: Aston Villa boss Unai Emery is definitely king of the Europa League

Aston Villa defender Matty Cash hailed manager Unai Emery as “the king” after he guided the club to Europa League glory with a 3-0 victory over Freiburg in Istanbul.

Emery delivered Villa’s first piece of silverware for 30 years after superb first-half strikes from Youri Tielemans and Emiliano Buendia were added to by Morgan Rogers’ close-range finish after the break.

The Spaniard wrote his name in Villa folklore after securing the club a first European title since 1982, and the win means he has now won the Europa League five times – three with Sevilla and one with Villarreal before this latest success.

All of the pre-match build-up centred around whether Emery thought he was ‘king’ of the competition.

The Villa boss was coy in admitting the title, but Cash definitely thinks he is, saying: “The king set the game plan out for us. He clearly is because he’s won it five times.

“He’s so demanding and passionate. We had a meeting today and he told us exactly how the game was going to go, and what they were like.

“He does that much work on the opposition, we knew what positions we were going to get into. The reason why we play like that is because we know what we are doing on the pitch. I’m going to enjoy this tonight.”

Villa have been knocking on the door in Europe over the past couple of seasons after reaching the Conference League semi-finals in 2024 and last eight of the Champions League in 2025.

Managers with five wins in major European finals:

Giovanni Trapattoni
Carlo Ancelotti
José Mourinho
UNAI EMERY