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Not so long ago, John McGinn presumed a detour to the Paris Saint-Germain club shop on a family holiday as a kid, getting kitted out en route to Disneyland, would be the closest he got to playing at the Parc des Princes. Unai Emery is a former PSG manager, Marco Asensio is on loan from the Ligue 1 club, but McGinn’s ties are more modest, if not tenuous.
“The only place I’ve been there is the shop,” he says, smiling. “We were in a big campervan and stopped off in Paris. I think I was about seven or eight … I remember getting a PSG strip.”
Next stop, Paris, in the Champions League quarter-finals. It has been quite the adventure: memorable trips to Young Boys, Leipzig, Monaco, two to Brugge, and McGinn says the ride can continue. PSG defeated Liverpool over two absorbing legs in the last 16, prevailing on penalties, and the Villa captain, while acknowledging their prowess, is predicting another close tie.
“It’s going to be a tighter game than a lot of people realise and we’ll certainly give everything we have to get through,” he says. “We’ve shown over the years, especially at Villa Park that we can compete against the best in the world, whether that’s Man City or Liverpool in full flow. PSG have got a lot in their armoury which can hurt us, but we have a lot in ours that can hurt them.”
October’s victory over Bayern Munich, another European superpower, will be hard to eclipse but the claret-and-blue convoys who will cross the Channel have grown used to supposed ceilings being shattered of late. “Whether they get on the ferry, get in their cars, there will be plenty of Aston Villa fans over there,” McGinn says.
“We all deserve it. Why not dare to dream? We can carry this journey on. You never, never know – stranger things have happened. We know we’re capable of playing against the best, competing against the best and I’m sure every team that comes up against us will know they’re in for a game.”
There is no shortage of belief. Not under Emery, a coach besotted with European competition; not with the superstar loanees Asensio and Marcus Rashford making a splash. Asensio has scored seven goals in his past five matches, including another double in victory against Brugge after entering at half-time on Wednesday. On another night he would have left with not just the player-of-the-match award but the match ball. Most importantly for Villa, Uefa rules permit Asensio to face his parent club. The ominous bit is Asensio is not yet at full fitness.
“That’s the exciting thing for us,” McGinn says. “It’ll be a strange one for him, but maybe he’s got a bit to prove to them. He probably feels he deserved more game time [at PSG]. We love having him here. His quality is just clear to see. There’s a lot more to come for Marco and I’m sure he’ll be giving us some tips on how to get past PSG.”
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McGinn will join Scotland on Sunday in preparation for a Nations League double-header with Greece, while those not reporting for international duty will fly to Dubai with Villa for a warm-weather training camp. When the entire squad reconvene, a FA Cup quarter-final at Preston provides the carrot of a trip to Wembley. For McGinn, one of few survivors from the Villa team promoted to the Premier League six years ago, it is just another reminder of how far they have come. “Me and Ty [Mings] had a laugh about it,” the 30-year-old says.
“As players, and for the staff that have been here a long time, and the supporters who were with us through thick and thin, [you remember] Millwall away getting hammered, Wigan away getting hammered,” McGinn says, alluding to jarring defeats in 2018-19 before clinching promotion via the playoffs. “Now they’ve got a trip to Paris to look forward to in the last eight of the Champions League. It’s amazing. But we need to take stock and go there and compete.”
