Olympiacos keeps dream alive with 4-2 victory over Aston Villa in Conference League semifinals

Just a few weeks ago, Olympiacos fans were eagerly anticipating the end of the season, but now they find themselves living a true dream.

Olympiacos, still battling to secure a Europa League spot through the league, and not ruling out the possibility of clinching the championship and thus securing a Champions League berth via the playoffs, are on an exhilarating European journey this season.

It wasn't enough for them to surprise everyone by eliminating Ferencváros in the Round of 32 of the UEFA Europa Conference League, securing a spot in the Round of 16. They also eliminated Maccabi Tel Aviv and then swept aside Turkey's Fenerbahçe in the quarterfinals.

All this came after a disastrous mid-season for the Greeks, a situation somewhat salvaged by José Luis Mendilibar, the coach who arrived at the Greek club and has already been renewed until the end of the 2024-2025 season due to the immediate results he's delivering.

Now, Olympiacos has triumphed 4-2 at home against Unai Emery's 'super' Aston Villa. We're talking about a club playing in the best league in the world and in a very good position in that league (fourth place, above clubs like Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham, and Newcastle) being convincingly defeated by Olympiacos.

Olympiacos' dream alive, beats Aston Villa 4-2 in Conference League semifinals

In the first leg of the Conference League Semifinals, Aston Villa lost much of their hope of reaching their first European final since 1982, falling 4-2 at home to Olympiacos.

It was the first defeat at Villa Park suffered by the English club in this European campaign, the last one still in contention in continental competitions.

Villa recovered from a 2-0 deficit but couldn't respond to Ayoub El Kaabi's third goal of the match. The striker converted a penalty to make it 3-2 and bring his tally to eight goals during this edition of the tournament.

Argentinian Santiago Hezze completed the scoring after Brazilian Douglas Luiz missed a penalty for Villa.

Olympiacos aims to host the final on May 29th, with Athens being the chosen venue.

In the early stages of the match, Ayoub El Kaabi scored two goals in a half-hour spell to give the visitors control.

The return leg will be in a week in Greece, where the hosts will seek to seal their passage to the season's decisive match.