Unai Emery will always shudder at mention of La Remontada. It came to define his time as the manager of Paris Saint-Germain, the crazy Champions League defeat to Luis Enrique’s Barcelona in 2017 after his team had held a 4-0 first-leg lead in the last 16. Barcelona would end up needing three goals with 88 minutes of the second leg gone at the Camp Nou. They got them for a 6-5 aggregate win.
On an epic night in the West Midlands, the roles were reversed; Emery the hunter with Aston Villa, Luis Enrique the hunted at PSG. It so nearly produced the ultimate moment of catharsis for Emery. His team were magnificent, absorbing the body blows of two concessions inside the opening half-hour that put PSG 5-1 up on aggregate and refusing to believe that this showpiece Champions League quarter-final was beyond them.
Villa needed four to force extra time. When Youri Tielemans got the first on 34 minutes, it was easy to wonder whether it changed something inside of them. The truth was it did not because Villa were always resolved to leave everything on the pitch. The club’s most recent appearance in Europe’s elite competition had been in 1982-83. It had already been a campaign to remember. What happened in the second half was something else.
Villa showed cut and thrust to go with their conviction and during a golden period, they got two further goals back and threatened the one to turn everything on its head, not least the notion that PSG are Europe’s best team at present, the favourites for the competition they have chased so hard for so long.
With Marcus Rashford exploding to life, John McGinn and Ezri Konsa were the scorers and the goals were far from isolated thrusts. It was bedlam inside Villa Park, everybody in claret and blue willing the equaliser, feeling it was coming.
What a story it would have been if Marco Asensio, who is on loan from PSG and came on as a substitute, had not been denied by Gianluigi Donnarumma in a one-on-one. Or if Konsa had not blown a header from a whipped Rashford free-kick.
PSG did stabilise up to a point after that, Emiliano Martínez having to make three decent blocks to keep them out on the break. But Villa sensed there would be another chance and it came in stoppage time when another substitute, Ian Maatsen, caught a volley and watched Willian Pacho block from in front of the line. It was unclear whether Donnarumma would have got across. Pacho had seen Villa’s first two goals deflect in off him. This was a moment of redemption and how PSG celebrated with him. Their quest for a first Champions League title remains alive. Just.
The optimism had run riot within the home supporters at kick-off time, Prince William among the believers in the stands. It did not matter that most neutrals considered PSG to have one foot in the semi-finals after Nuno Mendes’s late goal for 3-1 in the first leg, the crowning moment of a dominant team performance.
The atmosphere pulsed and Villa brought the storm, PSG indebted to Achraf Hakimi for the goal that helped them to settle. Marquinhos dispossessed Rashford and the visitors moved incisively from right to left and then up the flank through Bradley Barcola. His low cross caused a mix-up between Pau Torres and Martínez, who could only push the ball to Hakimi.
PSG’s second also spoke to Luis Enrique’s spirit of adventure because once again it was a full-back applying the final brushstrokes to a counterattacking masterpiece. PSG won the ball inside their own area and it was a blur of blue as they moved upfield, Hakimi prominent before Ousmane Dembélé went square to Mendes. The finish was lovely; a dart away from Matty Cash and a curler that kissed a post on its way in.
Villa had flickered at 1-0. Torres blasted too close to Donnarumma, while Morgan Rogers took a pass from Tielemans and curled just wide. They deserved the Tielemans goal, which was teed up by McGinn’s reverse pass after an excellent move involving Rashford.
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It was feisty and there was uproar when McGinn went down in the area after a shoulder-to-shoulder challenge from Hakimi on 36 minutes. Hard but fair, said the referee José María Sánchez. No penalty. Hakimi kicked up and out at McGinn as the pair tangled on the ground and he was lucky not to make contact. Sánchez became a target for the Villa fans. PSG might have had another before the interval only for Fabián Ruiz to scuff at Martínez when well placed.
Villa continued to bring the intensity, to play their football. And the crowd stayed with them. How they stayed with them. Rashford had extended Donnarumma in the 51st minute before McGinn picked up the ball inside his own half and kept running, the PSG defenders backing off. So he shot, the ball looping over Donnarumma.
Rashford was a man on a mission. He had cut inside to work Donnarumma with a vicious shot when he nutmegged Ruiz and swerved away from Vitinha before pulling back for Konsa, who curled home. Villa went for the jugular. Tielemans almost scored with a header, Donnarumma clawing over.
Torres could not react in time to direct a header of his own. It was pulsating theatre, Emery living every second, winding up on the ground more than once as Villa went close. They could not have gone any closer.
