26th August 2010, Aston Villa lost 3-2 to Rapid Vienna, dropping out the Europa League at the play-off stage. 13 years later European football is back.
Cast your minds back, Villa have just finished sixth in the Premier League under Martin O’Neil and secured a spot in the Europa League play-off round.
Rapid Vienna were the opponents, almost exactly a year after they had knocked the Villains out of the previous year’s competition.
Things were different now however, O’Neil was gone and Kevin McDonald was interim boss.
One of Villa’s stars, James Milner, was lining up an exit and no significant players had signed for the club.
The first leg of the tie saw a mixture of youth and experience take the field. Barry Bannan, Marc Albrighton, Andi Weimann, Jonathan Hogg and Nathan Delfouneso were all involved.
The Scotsman, Bannan, scored the opener after just 11 minutes in what was a lively start.
Atdhe Nuhiu levelled the score and it would stay that way until the end.
The home side dominated large portions of the game but a youthful Brad Guzan was able to keep the Austrians out.
The second leg saw a much more familiar look to the Villains’ starting eleven.
Stars like Ashley Young, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Emile Heskey leading the attack.
It didn’t take long to take the lead as Agbonlahor met Young’s cross to score after just 22 minutes.
Nuhiu scored again as he had in the first leg to level proceedings. A bullet header past Guzan after great work by Veli Kovak.
The tie started to turn when a foul on Heskey resulted in a penalty.
Captain, Stiliyan Petrov took it and it was saved. The man who won it subsequently bounced the ball over the bar.
Heskey made amends just five minutes later when he converted Habib Beye’s volley into the net, putting Villa ahead in the tie.
What happened next was gut wrenching for the Villa faithful.
Just a minute after the home side made it 2-1, Vienna went down the other end and equalised once more.
Mario Sonnleitner’s header was originally saved by Guzan, but it went over him and just out of reach as it rolled in.
This sparked huge celebrations as the away side were now ahead on aggregate, via away goals.
Villa needed to score again to have any hope of progressing to the groups.
Any hope was crushed just three minutes later as Rene Gartler scored to stick the knife in Villa’s back.
The home side needed two goals in 10 minutes to win the tie, a feat they couldn’t manage.
This game is an engrained memory for plenty of Villa fans, feeling like an eternity ago.
Several bellow par performances, relegation, promotion and Premier League survival has followed this game.
Under Unai Emery, Aston Villa have gone from strength to strength and achieved Conference League football qualification.
A trip to Hibernian saw the Villains take away a 5-0 win back to Villa Park.
European football returns to B6, as Hibs travel south.
The atmosphere will be electric with 13 years of emotion bottled up pouring out.
Emery’s claret and blue army march on towards the group stages.
