Villa and Palace: 44 years of waiting and a first time

In seven days of May 2026, two English clubs lifted two European trophies. It is worth saying up front that this, on its own, is no longer news: exactly the same thing happened the season before with Tottenham and Chelsea, and in 2022-23 with Manchester City and West Ham. It is the third time in four years.

The interesting part is not the flag, but the two clocks. Aston Villa had gone forty-four years without winning in Europe and thirty without winning anything at all. Crystal Palace had never played a continental final. Two waits with nothing in common, and they ended a week apart.

Istanbul: Villa never let it become a match

The Europa League final was played on 20 May at Beşiktaş Park, and it goes into the records as Freiburg 0-3 Aston Villa because the German club were handed the administrative status of home side. On the pitch there was no such thing: Villa took charge from the start and settled the final before Freiburg could work out what was happening.

Youri Tielemans opened the scoring in the 41st minute with a volley from a set piece. In the 45+3, Emiliano Buendía curled a finish in from inside the box to make it 2-0 at half-time and leave the final all but resolved. Morgan Rogers finished it off in the 58th, bundling in a cross from Buendía himself, who ended up named player of the match.

Unai Emery set up with Martínez in goal, a back four of Cash, Konsa, Torres and Digne, and an emergency solution in midfield: Victor Lindelöf played in the middle because Amadou Onana was carrying a calf injury. Ahead of them, McGinn, Buendía and Rogers behind Ollie Watkins. For Julian Schuster's Freiburg it was the first continental final in their history.

Emery and the competition he has made his own

The Istanbul title was Unai Emery's fifth Europa League. He won three with Sevilla, between 2014 and 2016, one with Villarreal in 2021 and this one with Aston Villa. No other manager has come close to that tally, and the explanation is no mystery: his teams compete better over two legs than across a league season.

The route backs it up. Villa finished second in the league phase with seven wins from eight matches, which spared them the play-off round and put them straight into the last 16. There they knocked out Lille 3-0 on aggregate, with a Watkins header in France and a 2-0 at Villa Park. In the quarter-finals they ran straight over Bologna, 7-1 on aggregate. And in the semi-finals they settled an all-English tie against Nottingham Forest: they lost 1-0 at the City Ground to a Chris Wood penalty and won the second leg 4-0 with a John McGinn double.

Leipzig: Palace won by the barest margin, which is how you win

Seven days later, on 27 May at the Red Bull Arena in Leipzig, Crystal Palace won their first European final 1-0 against Rayo Vallecano. The goal came in the 51st minute and was one of those that never make the pretty highlight reels: Adam Wharton shot from outside the box, Augusto Batalla could not hold it and Jean-Philippe Mateta poked it in with his left foot from six metres.

Oliver Glasner set up in a 3-4-3 with Henderson in goal, Muñoz and Mitchell in the wing-back roles and Sarr, Yéremy Pino and Mateta up front. Wharton, who came into the match with fitness doubts, played and took the player of the match award. Íñigo Pérez's Rayo made five changes in the second half without finding an equaliser. There were 39,176 spectators and the referee was Italy's Maurizio Mariani.

Mateta celebrated with his usual kick at the corner flag. In January he had been close to signing for Milan and a knee injury scuppered the deal; five months later he was scoring the goal that gave his club the first European trophy in their history.

Palace's long road

If Villa came in through the front door, Palace did the whole journey. They started in August 2025 with a qualifying tie against Norway's Fredrikstad that they settled 1-0 on aggregate. In the league phase they finished tenth on ten points, which meant they had to play the knockout play-off round against Zrinjski Mostar.

From there they strung together four ties: 3-1 against Zrinjski, 2-1 against AEK Larnaca with an Ismaïla Sarr goal in the 99th minute of extra time and the opposition finishing with nine men, 4-2 against Fiorentina and 5-2 against Shakhtar Donetsk in the semi-finals. Sixteen European matches to reach Leipzig.

Two very different clocks

• Aston Villa had gone 44 years without a European trophy: the previous one was the 1982 European Cup.
• And they had gone 30 years without winning anything at all: their last trophy was the 1996 English League Cup.
• Crystal Palace had never played a European final, and this is their first continental title.
• But their drought was the opposite kind: they arrived having won the 2025 FA Cup against Manchester City, the first major trophy in their history, and then the Community Shield.
• For Freiburg, Villa's opponents, it was also the first European final in their history.

What each title bought

Villa's left an administrative paradox. Winning the Europa League earns a place in the Champions League league phase, but Villa were already qualified through their fourth place in the Premier League. That place was freed up and moved down the access list to Sporting CP, who got into the league phase thanks to a trophy somebody else won. In money, Villa took something in the order of forty million pounds in prize money.

Palace's was more straightforward: a place in the 2026-27 Europa League league phase and around £21.5 million for the whole campaign, between participation, round bonuses, market value and the final bonus. The Premier League also confirmed that their entry did not cost any other English club its place: the league will have nine teams in European competition this season, five in the Champions League, three in the Europa League and one in the Conference League.

And in August the bill arrived

On 12 August, in Salzburg, Aston Villa played the UEFA Super Cup against PSG and lost 2-1. But the match produced the best headline of the summer on the losing side: Brian Madjo, a seventeen-year-old forward, was making his official debut for Villa and equalised with a volley in the 45th minute. At 17 years and 212 days he became the youngest scorer in the history of the Super Cup.

Doué put PSG back in front in the 61st with a goal the assistant ruled out for offside and VAR gave back. Madjo had three more chances that went wide. Sometimes the best story of a match is written by the side that loses.

"It took Villa forty-four years to win in Europe again. It took Palace their entire history to reach a final. They won seven days apart."