Unai Emery takes Villa back to Barcelona scene of his epic Champions League loss with PSG

GENEVA (AP) — Unai Emery returns to Barcelona this week for the first time in the Champions League since losing one of the most epic games in the competition’s 72-season history.

Emery takes Aston Villa, second in the 36-team standings, to Camp Nou on Tuesday for a standout game in the week that Harry Kane chases a Champions League record when Bayern Munich goes to Atletico Madrid and Manchester United’s imploding season brings Roma next to Old Trafford.

Villa sits only behind defending champion Paris Saint-Germain, which Emery led to Barcelona in March 2017 with 4-0 lead from the round of 16 first leg — and somehow let it slip in regulation time.

Barcelona’s 6-1 win over PSG, “La Remontada” or “The Comeback,” is part of Champions League lore worthy of its own Wikipedia page .

Emery never came back to Camp Nou in the Champions League at his next jobs with Arsenal nor Villarreal, but will arrive with Villa as a hugely respected coach of a progressive team whose latest rebuild is going faster than expected.

Villarreal hosts PSG — now coached by Luis Enrique, who was Barcelona boss a decade ago — on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Premier League leader Arsenal is at Slavia Prague and Real Madrid plays at AEK Athens.

Sporting Lisbon goes to London to face Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday, one day after coach Rui Borges is reported to have left, with Lyon coach Paulo Fonseca said to be the intended replacement.

After Tuesday, Emery will have faced Barcelona more often than any other club in his impressive career. The Catalan giant also has been his toughest opponent.

His teams won just three of 30 games against Barcelona so far, including PSG’s 4-0 in 2017 and Villarreal’s 2-0 win at Camp Nou on the last La Liga round in May 2022.

Villa has carried the form of last season's Europa League title — the fifth of Emery’s career — with three straight wins in the Champions League and 12 goals scored, three by in-form Senegal forward Nicolas Jackson.

Four years into his time at Villa Park, where he has wide input to key decisions, Emery has been controversially linked to a Manchester United job expected soon to be vacant.

Manchester United is tied for 20th in the Champions League standings — and 17th in the Premier League compared with Villa’s ninth — with coach Michael Carrick being judged game-by-game in the club’s latest dysfunctional season.

Maybe United’s luck will turn Tuesday facing a Roma club that has won just one of its 21 UEFA competition games in England, and none of the last 16.

That winless run includes Carrick scoring twice in a 7-1 rout in the second leg of the Champions League quarterfinals in 2007.

Liverpool’s results in Turkey are similarly bad, despite the “Miracle of Istanbul” final in Istanbul in 2005, won on penalties against AC Milan after a 3-3 draw.

The six-time European champion never won a European Cup or Champions League away game against a Turkish club, and last season lost twice at Galatasaray, 1-0 each time.

This time Liverpool plays on Wednesday at Fenerbahce which appointed its former player, and one-time Anfield star, Dirk Kuyt as interim coach in a difficult season. Kuyt scored for Liverpool in the 2007 final rematch won by Milan in Athens.

Harry Kane’s first Champions League game as a Ballon d’Or winner could see him tie a competition record held by Cristiano Ronaldo.

Starting in the 2017 final, won by Real Madrid against Juventus, and into the next season Ronaldo scored in 11 straight Champions League games, getting 17 goals in total.

Kane has scored in all 10 of Bayern’s Champions League games in 2026, getting 13 goals so far.

The former Tottenham star did not score at Atletico’s Metropolitano Stadium on his previous visit for the 2019 final that Liverpool won 2-0 . The final returns there this season.

Bodø/Glimt has a perfect record in Champions League home games this year, with a stellar list of losing visitors: Manchester City, Inter Milan, Sporting Lisbon and Borussia Dortmund.

Lille is the next arrival Tuesday to the Arctic Circle fishing town, where the wind is set to whip across the Aspmyra Stadium at 40 kph (25 mph) gusts at the 9 p.m. local time (2000 gmt) kickoff.

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