UCL: Aston Villa register historic win over Bayern Munich

Aston Villa registered a surprise 1-0 win over Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich at Villa Park on Wednesday night in the UEFA Champions League.

The decisive goal came 11 minutes from stoppage time when substitute Jhon Duran lobbed the ball over goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, who had come off his line.

Despite a late onslaught by the Bavarians, with the visitors coming close to equalising through forwards Harry Kane and Serge Gnabry, Villa held on for a historic Champions League win, evoking fond memories of their 1982 European Cup triumph against the German side.

A second win in as many Champions League games hoisted Villa to sixth on the table, while Bayern dropped to 15th in the new format.

Villa manager Unai Emery hailed his side for the fantastic result.

“I’m very happy for our supporters and everyone at Aston Villa,” said the Spaniard.

“Coaches, owners, supporters, workers – to share days like today, playing at this level in the Champions League against Bayern Munich and winning.”

“The most important thing is how we competed and how we prepared the game plan, how we were transmitting our energy to the supporters and their energy to us.”

Meanwhile, Bayern head coach Vincent Kompany was left ruing their missed chances, despite having decent spells in the game.

“If I’m being objective, we started the game well, we had a good 15 minutes, then we lost a bit of pace,” said Kompany.

“Then I had the feeling that it could be dangerous out of nowhere.”

“The second half was much better, we were in control, we made good runs forward and created great chances.”

“We had our chances, but we didn’t score.”

Bayern Munich will be eager to return to winning ways against second-placed Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga on Sunday, with online bookmakers paying -181.82 for the league leaders to beat their hosts (+432).

Meanwhile, Aston Villa will be in high spirits against visiting Manchester United this Sunday, with top soccer betting sites having the hosts pegged as +131 favourites to beat United (+196).

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