On consecutive Thursdays, as East Midlands meets West, their past will be all around them. Nottingham Forest’s City Ground is a monument to the architects of arguably the greatest story of them all in European football. There is the Brian Clough Stand and the Peter Taylor Stand, celebrating the double act who won two European Cups with a provincial club they inherited in the lower half of the second division. Villa Park, meanwhile, is adorned with Brian Moore’s commentary of Peter Withe’s winner in the 1982 European Cup final.
Withe unites Forest and Aston Villa. Part of the team Clough took first to promotion and then the First Division title, he was sold before their maiden European Cup campaign began. Forest conquered the continent twice in succession, becoming the only club to win the European Cup twice as often as their domestic league title, and yet Withe’s fairytale was not finished. He went from Newcastle to Villa and, after top-scoring for a Forest team who won their inaugural league title, did so for a Villa side who won their first in 71 years. Villa finished 11th the following year. They also beat Bayern Munich in the European Cup final. Withe struck.
As Villa and Forest meet in the Europa League, there is a sense of history but also a very modern feel. Much of the rest of Europe is entitled to look at the Premier League’s financial muscle and see nothing romantic about the presence of two of its sides in a semi-final. Forest, after all, have spent the best part of £200m on players in the last year.
A year ago, Tottenham and Manchester United blundered their way through seasons and yet still reached the Europa League final. The team who finished 17th in the Premier League won the second European competition. Forest are 16th now but history threatens to repeat itself.
If Forest prevail over two legs and then in an Istanbul final against either Freiburg or Braga, Clough could suddenly have quite a lot of company. One manager has brought European silverware to Forest. Now, Uefa may wonder if it needs to mint four medals for a campaign during which Nuno Espirito Santo, Ange Postecoglou, Sean Dyche and now Vitor Pereira have all taken charge. That, in itself, is a sign of the chaos at the City Ground this year.
If Forest might have four Europa League-winning managers, Villa do have a four-time winner. Unai Emery had a hat-trick of triumphs with Sevilla and one with Villarreal. If there is a case for arguing that Clough is the most transformative manager ever in the European Cup, Emery could cement his status as the difference-maker supreme in the Europa League. His achievements are all the greater because, like Clough’s, they did not come with the superclubs.
Villa would have merited that description in the 1890s, but not even in the 1980s when the unheralded Tony Barton steered them past Bayern. They won more league titles in the 19th century than in the 20th. They have no trophies in the 21st. Nor do Forest. This would be a first major piece of silverware since 1996, for Villa, or 1990, for Forest; unless, that is, the 1992 Full Members’ Cup qualifies.
Given the way the honours have been swept up by the same cabal of the super-rich, there would be something pleasing in seeing sizeable fanbases given a chance to celebrate. After Tottenham’s Europa League triumph last year, West Ham’s Conference League crown in 2023, Newcastle’s Carabao Cup and Crystal Palace’s FA Cup in 2025, it would be a welcome development. The counterargument is that it would come at the cost of continental clubs who are better run than Forest, in particular, and who have to get by on rather smaller budgets.
For Villa, it would be a tangible reward for four years of punching above their weight under Emery. Lift the Europa League and they would almost certainly qualify for the Champions League by two different routes this season. As it is, they were the outliers in its quarter-finals last season, beating Bayern, giving Paris Saint-Germain a scare.
Their manager has a deserved reputation as a specialist in knockout competitions, but it has not been justified in the FA or Carabao Cups. This has become Villa’s best chance of getting a medal to show for their exploits in the Emery era.
Their presence indicates how times have shifted. Forest are the European Cup winners who went down to the third tier. Eight years ago, they hosted Villa in the second. History was made then, too: a 5-5 draw saw Tammy Abraham score four for Villa, his now teammate Matty Cash get one of Forest’s goals, while John McGinn played the whole game.
Eight years on, the stakes are higher. It won’t be 1979 or 1980 for Forest, or 1982 for Villa, but clubs exiled from Europe for years can sense a chance to win big in it again.
