Club - Aston Villa: the Club facts

The Champions League is back in Bruges! After the match against Aston Villa, we are at the halfway point of the League Phase. Find out all about Wednesday's opponent here.

The match

Next Wednesday, after two away games in a row, the UEFA Champions League returns to Jan Breydel with a match against Aston Villa FC. Including preliminary rounds, it is the 100th match for Club Brugge at the Champions League (30W 25D 44L).

Some European stats for this match:

• It is Blue-Black's 365th European match and the 91st for Aston Villa.
• It is the 128th European match of a Belgian against an English club.
• This is Blue-Black's 100th match in the UEFA Champions League and 66th from the group stage.
• This is Club's 11th UCL campaign (group stage) and Aston Villa's 1st.

It is the first-ever European showdown between the two teams. Aston Villa is the 135th unique opponent in Club Brugge's European history. With Birmingham City FC, Club did play a team from Birmingham once before. Aston Villa is the twelfth English club Club Brugge will face.

On their own field, Club achieved 6 wins, 3 draws and 4 defeats against English teams.

It has been 29 years since Club beat a Premier League club at home: 1-0 against Chelsea FC in the quarterfinals of the European Cup II in 1995. This was followed by 2 more draws and 4 defeats in Brugge against English teams.

There are 4 players who played for both teams:

• Boško Balaban played for Aston Villa in the 2001-02 season and the first half of 2003-04. He could not score in 9 matches there. In the winter of 2003-04 Club came to get him from the Birmingham club. He became a crowd favorite at Club, scoring 59 times in 118 matches and winning a title (2005) and cup (2007).
• Youth product Björn Engels became champion at Club in 2016 and 2018. After tours at Olympiacos Piraeus and Stade Reims, he joined Aston Villa from 2019-2021.
• Marvelous Nakamba played for Club from 2017-2019. In 2018, he celebrated the title with Club. In the summer of 2019, he moved to Aston Villa where he played until January 2023.
• Wesley Moraes came to Club in January 2016. He was able to score as many as 38 times in 130 matches there. Aston Villa bought him away in mid-2019 where he suffered a serious injury.

Club started this season with a 3 out of 9 in the Champions League:

1. On the first match day, Club lost by exaggerated 0-3 figures to UCL finalist Borussia Dortmund (Jamie Gittens 2x, Serhou Guirassy).
2. More success for Club on the second match day: it went on to win 0-1 at Austrian champions SK Sturm Graz thanks to a beauty by Christos Tzolis.
3. On the third match day, Club went to rest at AC Milan with a goal behind (Pulisic) and a man less (red card Onyedika). After the break Club could still celebrate thanks to a goal by Kyriani Sabbe, but Tijjani Reijnders put the match in a final fold in favor of the home team (3-1) with 2 goals. With his goal at San Siro, Kyriani Sabbe was the 4th youngest player (19y 8m 26d) to score for Club in the UCL after Antonio Nusa (17y 4m 27d), Charles De Ketelaere (19y 7m 10d) and Abakar Sylla (19y 8m 13d)

Club is 26th in the rankings with 3 points. It needs points because teams in a lower ranking than 24th are out at the end of the league phase.

Aston Villa made a perfect start in their Champions League debut. The club won its first three matches and has yet to concede an opposing goal. The Villans started with a 0-3 win at Switzerland's Young Boys. In Bern, Belgians Tielemans and Onana were decisive with a goal and in between, Ramsey also scored (0-3). On the second match day, Villa were able to stunt at home with a 1-0 win (Durán) against Vincent Kompany's FC Bayern Munich. With that, they repeated the 1-0 win in the 1982 European Cup I final. Two weeks ago, Villa was able to knock Italian Bologna FC in its second home match thanks to goals by McGinn and Durán in the second half.

Aston Villa is the leader in the UCL League Phase with 9 points and a goal difference of +6. Only compatriots Liverpool FC can still keep up with them, but the Reds have a goal difference of only +5.

Defenders Tyrone Mings and Kortney Hause and midfielder Boubacar Kamara will miss the game with Club Brugge due to injury. Club coach Nicky Hayen cannot call on Raphael Onyedika who is suspended 1 game after his red card against AC Milan.

The opponent

Aston Villa was founded in 1874. Since 1897, it has played its home matches at Villa Park. The club became English champions 7 times (last time 1981), won the FA Cup 7 times (last time 1957) and the League Cup 5 times (last time 1996). Villa's greatest European achievement was winning the European Cup for Nations Champions in 1982 with a win against Bayern Munich.

Season 2023-2024:

• Aston Villa finished 4th with 68 points, behind Man City (champions), Arsenal and Liverpool. This final ranking earned Aston Villa a direct ticket to the League phase of the UCL.
• In the FA Cup, the club was eliminated early in the 4th round by Chelsea. In the League Cup, they were already out in the first round against Everton FC.
• Villa, like Club in the Conference League, became group winner, then made it to the semifinals. In the pools it held off Legia Warsaw (Pol), AZ Alkmaar (Ned) and HSK Zrinjski (Bih). In the final stage, it eliminated AFC Ajax (Ned) and LOSC Lille (Fra) to fall against the later winner Olympiacos FC (Gre) in the semifinals.
• Top shooter was Ollie Watkins (27 goals), most assists came from the foot of Leon Bailey (14).

After 10 playing days in the current Premier League season, Aston Villa is in sixth place with 18 points. That is seven less than leader Liverpool FC. Last Sunday, the Villans went down 4-1 at Tottenham Hotspur. Villa went into the break with a lead thanks to a goal by Morgan Rogers, but after the break the home team shifted up a gear under the impetus of Dominic Solanke (2 goals in 5 minutes). In the League Cup last week, Aston Villa was eliminated in the 4th round after a 1-2 defeat against Crystal Palace.

This season, Jhon Durán is Aston Villa's top marksman. The Colombian striker has already scored 8 goals: 4 in the Premier League, 2 in the Champions League and 2 in the EFL League Cup. Our compatriot Youri Tielemans is the club's best striker with 4 assists (3 PL + 1 UCL).

Tielemans is one of 2 Belgians active at Aston Villa. Some facts about him:

• Tielemans made his debut at the age of 16 in the Jupiler Pro League on July 28, 2013 for RSC Anderlecht against Sporting Lokeren. It was in the same match that Hans Vanaken (20) also celebrated his debut in the JPL with 2 goals for Sporting Lokeren (2-3).
• He played 185 games in 4 seasons with purple-white, scoring 35 times and giving 26 assists. He celebrated RSCA's last 2 titles there in 2014 and 2017.
• After Anderlecht, he moved to AS Monaco from mid-2017 to January 2019 (65m 6g 3a). Wednesday marks exactly 6 years since Club Brugge went on to win in the principality in the UCL 0-4 (Vanaken 2x, Wesley, Vormer), with Tielemans 90' on the pitch at Monaco.
• Monaco was followed by another 4.5 years at Leicester City (195m 28g 26a). In 2021, he won the FA Cup there. In the summer of 2023, he moved to Aston Villa.
• Tielemans could play his 75th game for the Red Devils next week against Italy. He already scored 9 times and gave 10 assists with the National Team.

Amadou Onana has also been playing for Villa since this summer. He came over from Everton FC. He was born 23 years ago in Dakar (Sen) and moved to Belgium when he was 11. There he played in the youth teams of Anderlecht, White Star and Zulte Waregem and moved to Germany's Hoffenheim at the age of 15. It was at Hamburger SV in the 2nd Bundesliga where he made his breakthrough in 2020-21. A year later he already transferred to LOSC Lille, and another year later in 2022 he traded the Ligue 1 for the Premier League at Everton. Onana, meanwhile, is already on 19 duels with the Red Devils and was active with Belgium at the 2022 World Cup and the 2024 European Championship.

Last summer, Leander Dendoncker left the club on loan for RSC Anderlecht. Midfielder Douglas Luiz and striker Moussa Diaby, among others, also left the Birmingham club.

Aston Villa reinforced this summer with these players among others:

• Defenders: Ian Maatsen, Lamare Bogarde, Kosta Nedeljković
• Midfielders: Amadou Onana, Ross Barkley
• Attackers: Jaden Philogene

Since November 2022, Spaniard Unai Emery (53) has been the coach of Aston Villa.

• He guided Aston Villa to 7th place in 2023 and 4th place in 2024.
• He won no less than 4 times the UEFA Europa League: 3 years in a row with Sevilla FC (2014,15,16) and did it again with Villarreal CF (2021). So in 2016 he won the 3rd final with Sevilla (1-3), Simon Mignolet then stood between the posts for opponent Liverpool.
• With PSG, he won 1 title (2018), 2 Coupes de France (2017,18) and 2 Coupes de Ligue (2017-18).
• As Valencia's coach, he has already faced Club Brugge 3 times. In the UEL group stage (2008), he did not get beyond 1-1 at home. A season later in the 1/16th final (2010) of the UEL, Club won 1-0 at home against Valencia and Valencia was able to win the return match after extensions (3-0).
• Emery coached a team against a Belgian opponent 4 times before in the UCL and was able to keep the zero each time: in 2011 with Valencia against KRC Genk (7-0 and 0-0), in 2017 with PSG against Anderlecht (0-4 and 5-0).

Club Brugge lost its last 3 home matches in the UCL without being able to score (0-4 vs FC Porto, 0-2 vs Benfica, 0-3 vs Borussia Dortmund). Club's depth record in the UCL is 4 consecutive losses at home between 2016 and 2018.

In its last 11 UCL matches, Club was able to keep the zero (55%) 6 times. Of all the teams that played at least 2 UCL campaigns since 2022, only Inter Milan (63%) achieved a higher percentage of clean sheets.

Aston Villa was able to win its first 3 UCL matches. Only 3 teams in history could win their first 4 matches at the Champions League: AC Milan in 1993, PSG in 1994 and Juventus in 1995.

Morgan Rogers (AV) already did 16 successful dribbles. That makes him the most successful Englishman in the first 3 games of a UCL group stage since those stats were recorded in 2003.

Aston Villa is only the third English team to come to play at Jan Breydel in the UCL group stage. They lost against Leicester City (0-3, 2016) and Manchester City (1-5, 2021) each time.

Milestones

• Simon Mignolet can stand between the posts for Club Brugge for the 260th time.
• Bjorn Meijer can play his 90th game for Blauw-Zwart.
• Casper Nielsen can play the 30th European match of his career (7 for Esbjerg fB and 22 for Club). He can also play the 10th match for Club in the UCL group stage.

The referee

German Tobias Stieler has been designated as the referee for this UCL match. He will be assisted by his compatriots Christian Gittelmann and Mark Borsch. The fourth official is Matthias Jöllenbeck. VAR will be led by Benjamin Brand, assisted by Bastian Dankert.

The UEFA referee observer is Georgios Bikas (Gre). The UEFA representative is Camelia Nicolae (Rou).

The 43-year-old ref from Obertshausen, a town near Darmstadt, has been whistling matches at the highest level in Germany since 2012. For 10 years he has been an international referee. He is an elite ref, the highest UEFA category. Once before, he has already led a Club Brugge match: the top match against Real Madrid CF in the UCL in 2019.

It is the 32nd European match in Club Brugge's history to be officiated by a German referee. It is Club's second consecutive UCL match with a German ref; in Milan, Felix Zwayer was the ref.