Young Boys v Aston Villa: Champions League – live

8 min: Ugrinic takes the free kick, and sends it straight at Martinez. It dips a little at the last, but doesn’t cause the World Cup winning keeper any discomfort.

7 min: Athekame bursts down the right then infield. He exchanges passes with Ganvoula before being clipped lightly by Tielemans. He goes down to purchase a soft free kick, 25 yards out in a fairly central position.

5 min: Some space for Ramsey on the left. He slips the ball infield for Rogers, who thinks about curling a shot goalwards from the edge of the box, but hesitates and allows the Young Boys defence to close him down.

4 min: Both teams scamper around, all early hope and promise. Not much shape to the match otherwise.

2 min: Two early observations. The pitch is plastic. Villa’s kit is extremely reminiscent of Beckham-era Manchester United. Think Sharp Digital and you’ll be whisked back to 2000 in a nanosecond.

Young Boys get the ball rolling. A cracking atmosphere at the Wankdorf Stadium. Our man on the spot, Ben Fisher, reports that Villa’s fans are “in good voice, determined to savour the occasion.” Meanwhile Karen Asad writes: “Always had sympathy for underdogs like Young Boys in the Champions League, but after reading Jonathan Liew’s piece on how these teams are actually monsters devouring their domestic competition, that’s done and dusted.”

The teams are out! Young Boys wear their yellow and black, while Villa sport third-choice blue. They’ve remixed the Champions League anthem, Uefa finding brand new ways of smearing their marketing mitts over the dots of George Frideric Handel. Oh Zadok!

Unai Emery talks to TNT Sport. “Good evening … we are going to try to play with confidence … to enjoy … and be competitive … we needed the bench to have impact before and we will need that again today … in training we were feeling good … we must focus on the gameplan … we will try to play with personality.”

How good was Gary Shaw? Diego Maradona once asked for his shirt. Yep, that good. Maradona put in his request after the Villa striker was instrumental in dismantling a brutish Barcelona side in the second leg of 1982 Super Cup. This piece, by our old pal Paul Doyle, tells the story in rip-roaring fashion, and is one of the all-time must-reads. If you’ve not seen it before, enjoy. You’re welcome.

Here’s how the Guardian, via the flowing pen of the legendary David Lacey, reported on Villa’s greatest night in 1982 …

… and here are the memories today of five of their heroes. If Ben Fisher’s piece somehow passed you by this morning, make yourself a cup of tea, pull up a chair, and enjoy. This is great fun, and is guaranteed to give Villa fans – and indeed everyone else who loves the sport – some warm and fuzzy feelings.

The reigning Swiss champions Young Boys are currently bottom of the Swiss Super League, without a win in their first six matches. That doesn’t quite tell the whole story, though. Having lost their three opening league fixtures back in July, they’ve since steadied the ship a bit with three draws, a couple of wins in the Swiss Cup, and home and away victories over Galatasaray to qualify for this fancy new Champions League, League Stage. (The branding folk didn’t think this through, did they.) Still, it’s not been the ideal start for Patrick Rahmen’s side, and in-form Villa will fancy their chances of getting their CLLS (I know, but we’ve got to call it something) campaign up and running with a win.

If it ain’t broke, etc. Villa have won three of their opening four games in the Premier League, and should have come away with something from the one they lost. So Unai Emery is understandably of the view that nothing much needs fixing right now. He names the same XI that started the 3-2 comeback win over Everton at the weekend.

The teams

Preamble