Aston Villa Open Champions League Campaign With 3-1 Win at Club Brugge
Aston Villa opened their 2026/27 Champions League season with a 3-1 win away at Club Brugge, banishing the memory of last November's defeat on the same ground and giving manager Unai Emery his first victory of the campaign (BBC Sport; Reuters).
John McGinn set Villa on their way with the opening goal, a strike that made him the club's all-time record European goalscorer with 12 — overtaking a benchmark that had stood across Villa's decades of continental football. Emiliano Buendia added a second before the break, and the visitors looked comfortable at half-time.
Jackson scored his first goal for the club after the interval, profiting from a mistake by goalkeeper Yann Sommer to make it 3-0. Club Brugge pulled one back from the penalty spot, Nicolo Tresoldi converting after a blatant Aaron Wan-Bissaka handball, but Villa held firm through a nervy final stretch — Pau Torres central to the defensive resistance that preserved the two-goal cushion (Reuters).
The fixture had history. Club Brugge won this exact matchup 1-0 in November 2024, a result that gave Villa their first taste of Champions League defeat at Jan Breydelstadion (Aston Villa FC). Villa got their revenge in the spring, winning 3-1 in Belgium and 3-0 at home to advance 6-1 on aggregate in the last 16 (Aston Villa FC; Reuters). This latest meeting adds another chapter — and another Villa win — to a rivalry that is rapidly becoming one of the competition's more familiar pairings.
Emery's task this season is complicated by the sheer volume of new faces. Ten players arrived over the summer, and the Spaniard is still bedding them in while trying to compete on multiple fronts. Two of them marked the night with milestones: Joao Gomes and 17-year-old George Hemmings made their Champions League debuts, with Hemmings becoming Villa's first teenage starter in Europe's premier club competition in 43 years (BBC Sport).
Marcus Rashford, meanwhile, resumed his own Champions League story in a Villa shirt. The England forward started up front, continuing the fresh chapter he began at the club last season (AP News).
Club Brugge arrived with a formidable home record in this competition — three or more goals in six of their last seven Champions League home games (UEFA). They managed only one here. Villa's back line, with Torres to the fore, made sure of that.
For Villa fans, this is the perfect start. Three points on the road, a record broken, a teenager blooded, and the long shadow of last season's Brugge defeat firmly in the rear-view mirror.
