JUST BEFORE THE halfway point of another giddy night at Villa Park, Harry Kane dropped deep in his own half to pick up possession, and he then weaved slowly forward, somehow forcing himself by opposition players with a mixture of feather touch and physical force.
By the time he approached the halfway line, Kane had the look of a man who desperately wanted to give up the ball but couldn’t, holding onto it like some heirloom of no value aside from sentimental. The reason Kane couldn’t pass the ball was because he feared all of the team-mates ahead of him would stray offside, and so he clung onto the ball until it was taken off him. Kane then turned around, clumsily fell into the back of Morgan Rogers and cynically swept his feet from underneath him as he fell.
The moment was like hearing the priest swear down the microphone at mass: Gentleman Kane does not normally commit these obvious acts of cynicism and frustration. But this is what reasonable men are driven to by Unai Emery’s Aston Villa.
Emery’s appointment is one of those perfect unions between club and coach, where his extreme repetitions and attention to detail have been eagerly swallowed by a group of players eager and humble for instruction and hard work.
The product of that is this, a night in which Villa can defang and then beat one of the aristocrats of the European game.
Villa are so brilliantly drilled that they compress most of the space between the lines, and they police any long balls over them with one of the most brutally effective offside traps in Europe. Everyone is aware of the remorseless efficiency of Villa’s defensive line, so a better description might be deterrent, rather than trap.
That moment was also pretty much the last we saw of Kane in this game until the final moments, when he had a free-kick blocked behind for a corner and then a glancing, goal-bound header parried away by Emi Martinez, who once again rose to another major occasion.
Otherwise Kane resembled many of his team-mates tonight: too often ponderous and shambling and needing too many touches of the ball. In comparison to Villa, Bayern looked like men endlessly fiddling with the dial on an FM Radio, unaware of how easy it is to sign up to Spotify instead.
Villa were a perfect contrast. They were happy to give the ball to Bayern but were coiled and ready to spring onto the counter-attack, playing quick balls forward with pace and conviction and without a moment’s hesitation. Ollie Watkins tangled with and discomfited Dayot Upamecano, who, while booked for one foul in the first-half, got a passing grade in a sneakily tough exam.
Bayern could not deal with Watkins’ replacement, however. Jhon Duran is among the most direct players in the game: he believes a second touch is an extravagance which can only be rarely indulged.
And so Duran was typically forthright in settling this game, racing onto Pau Torres’ long ball and catching a glimpse of Manuel Neuer’s absenteeism before pumping the ball into the empty net.
From there Villa defended their lead and needed Martinez to guarantee it, blocking Serge Gnabry at close range after he pounced on a delicious pass from Jamal Musiala. His late save from Kane secured a victory that is famous and monumental but not particularly surprising.
That is a compliment to the club’s recruitment and Emery’s coaching: both have coalesced to make Villa a genuine Premier League force and an opponent primed to cause nightmares for whoever they meet in the knockout round.
It’s unsurprising too given this game was won by the side employing a manager with regular success at the elite end of European football on his CV. Vincent Kompany has showed promise as a coach but it will never not be bewildering that his consequence for relegating Burnley has been to take charge of Bayern Munich in a season that culminates with a Champions League final held at their own stadium.
Tonight his side toiled in breaking Villa down while looking wide open at all times themselves. That they were so easy to play through will draw scrutiny on Kompany’s continued snub of Joao Palhinha, a defensive midfielder deemed of such importance by the club that they spent €53 million on him as he turned 29.
Kompany was not Bayern’s first choice for the job, and may not have been second, third, or fourth choice either. But the club have cycled through managers in chaotic fashion in recent years, and therefore needed to hire someone.
There’s ultimately no papering over your institutional cracks when you come up against a club as slickly and effectively aligned as Aston Villa.
