'No ceiling': How Aston Villa went from the Championship to the Champions League

No club in England — and perhaps no club in the world — has undergone a dramatic transformation as recent as Villa's. But how did it pull it all off?

Owners with a vision. In 2018, club owner Tony Xia sold a majority stake to a consortium led by Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens. (Americans may recognize Edens owns the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks.) Together, they made Villa fans a promise: Champions League soccer, and soon.

When Sawiris and Edens took over, that seemed far-fetched; Villa was still in the second division. But a quick promotion back to the Premier League and a few seasons in the middle of the table steadied Villa's ship. By 2020, Villa had growth potential — and that potential attracted Spanish coach Unai Emery, a renowned master of European competitions. He pushed Villa from mid-table to the top four in two seasons flat to make good on Sawiris and Eden's lofty promise.

Clever transfers. While Villa is hardly destitute, it's no Manchester United; it needs to be smart with its money when investing in players. Its smartest investment yet? Argentinian goalkeeper Emi Martinez, who arrived in 2020 from Arsenal for $25 million. (By contrast, Brazilian goalkeeper Alisson joined Liverpool two years earlier for double the price.)

The transfer was a shot of adrenaline for Villa, but it also benefited Martinez. His work for the club earned him a starting position in the Argentinian national team, and two years later, in 2022, he lifted the World Cup — and the Golden Glove award for the tournament's best goalkeeper.

Learning from the lower divisions.  Villa never did a wholesale clear-out of its players from the second division. Instead, it developed them, paying close attention to each athlete's ceiling and selling them on when it was reached. To Villa's surprise, several players — Scotland's John McGinn and England's Tyrone Mings — never hit their ceilings and continued improving with the team.

Villa started scouring the lower divisions for players, believing it could acquire future stars at bargain prices. It found Ollie Watkins at Brentford and turned him into one of the most productive strikers in the world; it found Morgan Rogers at Middlesbrough and morphed him into a Champions League-caliber winger.

It took eight years for Villa to climb from the doldrums of the second division to the top of the Champions League. Who knows what the next eight years will bring? For Villa defender Matty Cash, it's impossible to say. "Since I joined, the club has just gone through the roof; the quality in every single department has gone up," he said. "The club has not got a ceiling."

Aston Villa will return to Premier League action this Saturday, Oct. 26, against Bournemouth; it will return to the Champions League on Wednesday, Nov. 6, against Belgium's Club Brugge.