Aston Villa loses its inhibitions to create new memories for a new generation | Aston Villa

Pau Torres collects possession in front of the Holte End, where a banner reading “No fight, no pride, no effort, no hope” was unfurled in 2016. He threads the ball over the halfway line, where Tony Xia once stood as Aston Villa’s new chairman and promised to build a theme park. In the dugout, Unai Emery leans forward expectantly, just a few meters from the spot where – six years ago to the day – an angry fan threw a cabbage at Steve Bruce.

And as Jhon Durán’s speculative shot grazed the back of the net, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and the crowd grew ever larger, was it worth it in the end? Is the humiliation worth it, is the irrelevance worth it, is it worth 11,000 against Middlesbrough in the League Cup, is it worth losing at home to Stevenage, is it worth Remi Garde and Roberto Di Matteo?

1-0 against Bayern Munich. History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. And Gary Shaw is no longer here, but Dennis Mortimer and Peter Withe are holding on tight, and there are grown men in the crowd with tears in their eyes, and Durán just smiles and nods as if to say, “I told you so.” so”.

This is a place that has spent the last few decades trying to escape its ghosts, but largely failing to do so. The past is everywhere you look here. It lives in the weathered murals and the grainy photos and the famous Brian Moore commentary plastered on the Doug Ellis stand, and even in the red brick structure itself, which basically looks like a Victorian sherbet factory, a building of which one is almost surprised to find still open.

So perhaps it was only natural that Villa Park’s first taste of the Champions League was steeped in a sense of history. And not just the obvious parallels to 1982, but also the recent past, the long and often ignominious path that Aston Villa has taken to get here. Relegations and promotions, five managers in 20 months, rejection of Rickie Lambert. A night of feeling a little dazed and alarmed at the pace of progress, decades of despair swept away in one fell swoop.

But of course there is always a danger here too. The danger is that you are playing the occasion and not the opponent, the ghost over the flesh. Is second place in the Bundesliga last season really a significant step up from fourth place in the Premier League? Is Kim Min-jae really that much better than Pau Torres, is Manuel Neuer really a big improvement over Emi Martínez, is Harry Kane really in a different class than Ollie Watkins? Put more simply: Are you playing like the team that is fulfilling a long-held dream? Or the team that actually belongs at this level?

Twenty minutes into the game it seemed we had our answer. Bayern had 73% possession and all of the territory. Villa was alert, disciplined, generous and far too respectful. But Torres’ early goal – despite being disallowed for offside – seemed to make a difference.

Moments later, Morgan Rogers’ pace dropped. Amadou Onana had a chance. Jaden Philogene crashed into Alphonso Davies after keeping a respectful distance in the first quarter of the game. Youri Tielemans spun Joshua Kimmich around as if he were disappearing through a trick door. Suddenly Villa seemed to remember that this was the team that had failed in the Bundesliga last season, managed by the man who had lost here with Burnley last season.

And for people like Rogers and Philogene and also Jacob Ramsey before he left injured, this is the kind of story that matters. Unlike the thousands in the stands, Villa’s young England team are not scarred by the past, neither inherently suspicious nor fatalistic. Does Philogene even register 1982 as an event year? Not on this basis, a storming Champions League debut that belies the 43 minutes he has played this season and the fact he played for Hull City a few months ago.

Rogers was all but unplayable, a spinning machete player who flew into clouds of Bayern jerseys and somehow emerged with the ball still at his feet.

In between there were long periods of Bayern possession, a lot of pressure, a few half-chances, but there was nothing really scary until the last few minutes. Kane drifted off and on, omnipresent and yet somehow completely ephemeral, like the plot in a Claire Denis film. Villa were able to break through with pace and numbers. Eventually, the exhausted Watkins gave way to Durán, and everyone knows what happens when that happens.

Time for a new page. This is a club with a rich and beautiful history, but at the moment the history isn’t remotely the most interesting thing about it. Perhaps it was fitting that this victory was largely due to the new generation, the players who can show this club where it is going, the young men who can shape its future. On a night when Villa celebrated its past, they somehow turned the clock forward.