Paris Saint-Germain are the European and world champions. Aston Villa just won their first continental trophy in 44 years. On paper, Wednesday's UEFA Super Cup in Salzburg pits a superpower against a very good club having a moment — and it should not be close. But the story of each side's midfield is scrappier. Villa have been rebuilding from scratch with a full pre-season to bed it in, while PSG will only be reassembling its best players roughly 48 hours before kickoff.
Villa manager Unai Emery walked into the summer with a settled double pivot of Youri Tielemans and Amadou Onana. He has neither now. Tielemans joined Manchester United last month after they triggered the £35 million release clause in his contract — a departure that followed a World Cup in which he captained Belgium and scored twice against Senegal. Onana's summer ended worse: he ruptured his ACL in Belgium's 4-1 win over the United States in the round of 16, needed surgery in Lyon, and is targeting a return around April next year. UEFA lists just four recognised midfielders in Villa's Super Cup squad — Boubacar Kamara, João Gomes, John McGinn and Ross Barkley — which tells you how thin Emery's options have become.
The encouraging part for Villa is that the pieces left behind have had time to work together. Kamara, back from his own knee injury since January, marked his long-awaited comeback with a goal in the 3-1 win over BG Pathum United in Thailand, and started alongside Gomes — Villa's £35 million signing from relegated Wolves — in the 2-1 defeat to Bayern Munich last Friday. That Kamara-Gomes pivot looks like Emery's first-choice pairing for Salzburg, with McGinn pushed into a more advanced role just behind Ollie Watkins, flanked by Emiliano Buendía and, fitness allowing, new loan signing Alejandro Garnacho.
{{/usCountry}}The encouraging part for Villa is that the pieces left behind have had time to work together. Kamara, back from his own knee injury since January, marked his long-awaited comeback with a goal in the 3-1 win over BG Pathum United in Thailand, and started alongside Gomes — Villa's £35 million signing from relegated Wolves — in the 2-1 defeat to Bayern Munich last Friday. That Kamara-Gomes pivot looks like Emery's first-choice pairing for Salzburg, with McGinn pushed into a more advanced role just behind Ollie Watkins, flanked by Emiliano Buendía and, fitness allowing, new loan signing Alejandro Garnacho.
{{/usCountry}}McGinn himself had a scare, forced off with a knee injury against BG Pathum United, but scans found no serious damage, and he posted "See you Wednesday in Salzburg" on social media this weekend, where he will captain his side. Pre-season results have been mixed rather than alarming: a 5-0 rout of Walsall, defeats to Porto and Real Sociedad, wins over Indonesia's All-Stars and BG Pathum United, then that Bayern loss. Not the form of a side about to frighten anyone. But crucially, Villa's midfield options have had six full weeks of matches and training camps together, in Thailand, Indonesia and Germany, to find a working shape.
PSG's issue, meanwhile, is not who they have, but how little those players have played. Luis Enrique's first-choice trio of Vitinha, João Neves and Fabián Ruiz — architects of back-to-back Champions League titles — barely featured in pre-season at all. PSG's only two warm-up games were a 3-0 defeat to Mallorca, played with a youth-heavy side because every World Cup contender was still on leave, and a 1-1 draw with Manchester United last Saturday, in which Vitinha and Neves came off the bench in the second half, and Ruiz didn't feature at all. In fact, PSG's full squad — Ruiz, Ousmane Dembélé, Bradley Barcola, Achraf Hakimi, Desire Doué, Lucas Hernández and the rest — only returned to training together at their Poissy base on Monday, roughly 48 hours before the Super Cup. That is an almost nonexistent lead-in for a competitive final. Whether the World Cup returnees are sharp enough to start, or feature at all, will be a huge point of contention.
There's a psychological layer to it as well. Two of PSG's first-choice midfield unit were beaten by their own teammate before either side had even reported for pre-season training. Ruiz spent his summer winning the World Cup with Spain, scoring in the semi-final and starting the 1-0 extra-time win over Argentina in the final. On the way, he eliminated Portugal, featuring his fellow midfielders Vitinha and Neves, and left-back Nuno Mendes, 1-0 in the Round of 16. Those polar opposite emotions will need time to settle, and PSG know this well — remember, in the winter of 2024, they welcomed back Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe from the dramatic Qatar World Cup final.
None of this changes the broader picture. PSG's individual quality dwarfs Villa's, and over a season the two clubs aren't playing in the same category — one is defending the Champions League, the other is just returning to it. Villa's midfield is smaller and less gifted than it was in May, yes, but crucially, right now, it is considerably better drilled than PSG's. In a one-off match in mid-August, Villa’s rebuild could just end up trouncing the rusty Parisians.