Does Super Cup really matter?

[BBC] Unai Emery is the king of the Europa League. He won a fifth title with Aston Villa in May - their win over Freiburg in Istanbul ending a 30-year trophy drought - but the Super Cup has eluded him. On Wednesday in Salzburg Emery tries for a fourth time to win the competition, when Villa face Champions League winners Paris St-Germain. Last season Emery declared he wanted to seal third place in the Premier League because he had not achieved it with Villa. Finishing fourth was not a failure but it will have rankled with perfectionist Emery. It will be the same with the Super Cup, but is the competition a glorified friendly or does it really matter? Emery has suffered defeats by Real Madrid, Barcelona and Chelsea - the first two with Sevilla, and then losing on penalties to the Blues in Dublin with Villarreal in 2021. A 5-4 extra-time loss to a Lionel Messi-inspired Barcelona in 2015 came a year after Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice to earn Real Madrid the trophy. Emery had already left for PSG by the time Sevilla lost the 2016 Super Cup to Real. But, at Red Bull Arena against his former side and with 6,000 Villa fans travelling, he has the chance to break his losing streak. "He [pointing to Villa captain John McGinn] was reminding me last week [about losing to Chelsea]," said Emery. "Of course, it's an opportunity. A trophy is something that can give us a special moment. To play for trophies is, as a professional, our objective. "PSG are the favourites but I am looking forward to playing, how we can test this match against PSG with our capacity? "As a coach, as a player, as a club, it's a trophy. It's one thing that makes us proud of how we are and how we arrive here." Read more on Villa and the Super Cup