Sevilla honors Antonio Puerta as Unai Emery’s Aston Villa visit

The Sevilla host Aston Villa this Friday (20:30) for the XV Trofeo Antonio Puerta, in a high-profile European tribute. The match also marks the return of Unai Emery to the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán almost five years after his last spell away from Nervión.

Emery’s name is closely tied to Sevilla, winning the Europa League three years in a row (2014, 2015 and 2016). After moving on to the PSG, he added more European titles: with Villarreal in 2021 and, more recently, with Aston Villa in 2026.

His previous meetings from the away dugout weren’t kind: with Villarreal, Sevilla beat him twice in the league’s Matchday 16 (2-0 and 1-0), with Lucas Ocampos scoring in both and Youssef En-Nesyri in the first.

Aston Villa arrive after a three-day training camp in Marbella. In the Premier League they sit 16th with 1 win, 1 draw and 3 losses, although they’ve improved recently: they beat Coventry City in the EFL Cup (1-3) and Tottenham in the league (2-3), and in the Champions League they’ve won their only match so far against Club Brugge (2-3). For Sevilla, Luis García Plaza named 23 players; Kike Salas and Rubén Vargas are out, Lucas Stassin remains sidelined, and Fábio Cardoso and Fran González make the list after recent issues, according to MARCA.