John McGinn insists he and his teammates must now embrace the opportunity to become Aston Villa legends after booking their place in the Europa League final. It will be the first major European final Villa have contested since 1982, when the club won the European Cup in Rotterdam.
McGinn scored twice late on to seal Villa’s victory over Nottingham Forest in the Europa League semi-final second leg, following goals from Ollie Watkins and Emi Buendía either side of half-time. The 4–1 aggregate victory secures Villa’s place in the final in Istanbul, where they will face German side Freiburg.
McGinn Reflects on Pressure and Performance
“I am normally quite calm before games, but the pressure today was intense,” McGinn said on TNT Sports after full-time. “This group of players deserves to go one step further to get to a final after a few semi-final disappointments. You can kid on that it doesn’t affect you, but today I was nervous. Tonight was up there with one of the best performances I have seen from a Villa team in a long time. We started with intent. We were pretty fortunate with Forest’s injuries, and we needed to capitalise.”
“I wasn’t nervous in terms of the team turning up. We have done this before in big games, maybe not in semi-finals, but to get promoted and on the last day against Brighton to get into Europe. Then to stay up, which is the most pressure you can have. It was more in case we had a man sent off or something like that, also because we didn’t handle that first leg too well. I didn’t want to leave these two games with any regrets, and tonight we have done ourselves massive justice.”
Fan Support and Avoiding 'Nearly Men' Tag
Asked about the Villa fans and their powerful backing against Forest, McGinn said: “We have been through a lot together. We have had low moments, definitely. It’s a demanding club to play for, but when it’s like this, Villa Park is electric. There’s no better place to play your football every second week or European football. What we have done in the last few weeks has been exceptional. The margins are so slim - if we lose tonight, then we are the nearly men. When we go to Istanbul in 10 days, we need to make sure that we are not the nearly men.”
Embracing Legend Status
“It’s about embracing it [pressure] and trying to become legends,” McGinn added. “You see the guys from 1982, you see the cup winners in the 90s. It’s a historic club, and it’s been a long time without success. There have been massive lows, like relegation, and it has built itself back up. It’s such a proud football club, it deserves success, and hopefully we can be the group to do it.”
