Becoming the 11th English team to feature in the Champions League proper, Aston Villa will finally return to UEFA’s elite competition after 41 years of waiting, after the Birmingham club broke into England’s top four last season.
The 1982 European Cup winners last experienced such rarefied air when losing to Juventus in the quarter-finals, one year after lifting the trophy in Rotterdam following a 1-0 win over German giants Bayern Munich.
More recently, the Villans were involved in European competition for the first time in more than a decade last term, as an Unai Emery-inspired side went all the way to the Europa Conference League semi-finals.
Though they were comprehensively beaten by eventual champions Olympiacos, Villa had previously finished first in their group before seeing off Ajax and Lille in the knockout rounds.
Furthermore, their Basque boss led them to fourth place in the Premier League – the club’s best finish since 1996 – and they have since won three of their first four games this season.
Suffering just one loss to Arsenal so far, Emery’s men came from two goals down to beat Everton 3-2 at Villa Park on Saturday, with England striker Ollie Watkins scoring twice before substitute Jhon Duran struck a spectacular winner.
However, ahead of their history-making trip to Bern on Tuesday, Villa have won just twice in 11 European away matches, including a chastening defeat in Greece that sealed last term’s semi-final exit.
Soon to face Bayern and Juve again, they will be keen to get points on the board against Swiss opposition: all four of Villa’s previous meetings with teams from Switzerland came in the Intertoto Cup, but two decades later they are finally back in the big time.
While Aston Villa are taking part in Europe’s top club tournament for just the third time ever, their hosts have progressed through qualifying for a fourth time in the past six years.
After finishing third in their group last season – behind Manchester City and RB Leipzig – Young Boys dropped down into the Europa League, where they were immediately eliminated by Sporting Lisbon in the knockout-round playoffs.
This time, they will experience UEFA’s new-look 36-club league phase, having qualified by beating Turkish champions Galatasaray in both legs of last month’s playoff.
However, it has been far from plain sailing for YB since winning their sixth national title in seven years, as they made an awful start to the new Swiss Super League season and are yet to post a league win.
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Patrick Rahmen‘s side lost each of their first three fixtures – conceding an average of three goals per game – and a trio of draws later they have just three points from a possible 18, leaving them rock-bottom of the table.
At the weekend, Young Boys avoided more embarrassment against third-tier Vevey-Sports in the Swiss Cup, having let a two-goal lead slip before scoring twice in the final ten minutes to secure victory.
Including their wins over Galatasaray, that actually made it six games unbeaten in all competitions, and the Bern club will now seek just a second win in 12 against English opponents – the other coming versus Manchester United in 2021.
