Dan Bardell

And then it's followed up by arguably an even better goal from Emi Buendia, who I just knew would score because he's popped up with that kind of moment often.

All season, and to be honest, at halftime, I thought Freiburg looked a little bit down and out, and I did just think, oh my God, we have done it.

We are going to lift a trophy.

I mean, you speak to me like I'm a seasoned trophy winner.

I haven't got a clue what the best way is to win a trophy.

Because in all honesty, the last time in 1996 Villa won a trophy, they won 3-0.

And it was relatively comfortable the day that Savo Milosevic scored against Leeds.

But I think it did show...

Emery's class that he didn't need to bring Tyrone Mings on but he's the longest serving player he's been there for so long he didn't need to bring Douglas Luiz on who was at Villa for a long time left and has come back and not really been a part of things in the second half of the season because he's not been good enough to get in the team so he didn't need to do those things but yeah

It's nice to watch a final in the second half, especially when you score an early goal in that second half as well and feel comfortable and just watch a football match knowing you're about to lift a trophy and you're going to do it and you don't really need to worry.

It was a surreal night for just so many reasons.

As I said, there's a lot of moments in the last 24 hours where I've sat back and thought, what on earth am I doing here?

But just to indulge me for just a couple of minutes, a Villa fan who I have never met, don't know, messaged me yesterday saying,

saying that his dad had passed away the afternoon before and they had plans to sit and watch the game together and that I'd done absolutely the right thing.

He wishes he could watch it with his dad.

That's been taken away from him at the last second.

So I'm very aware that there's many people who watch football.

There'll be many people who

who support Villa, that there's people that they'd have wanted to have watched that final with yesterday because it's a generational moment for Villa fans so long without that trophy.

So it was absolutely the right thing to do.