Former Aston Villa midfielder Douglas Luiz is set to return perhaps sooner than he had expected to Villa Park this summer.
Aston Villa completed the signing of Amadou Onana from Everton for £50 million with the Belgian ace brought in to replace a departing £50 million star.
Earlier this summer, Juventus completed the agreement with Aston Villa for Douglas Luiz with the Midlands club getting in Enzo Barrenchea and Samuel Iling-Junior in a swap with the Villains also receiving money for the former Manchester City ace.
Despite leaving Villa Park in June, the Brazilian will be returning to the Midlands sooner than he perhaps would have expected.
Aston Villa set to face Juventus in the UEFA Champions League
Unai Emery’s Villans will take on Bayern Munich, Juventus, Celtic and Bologna at Villa Park, while facing RB Leipzig, Club Brugge, Young Boys and AS Monaco away.
This will be Villa’s first appearance in European football’s premier competition since 1983, having lifted the European Cup a year prior.
When Villa won the European Cup back in 1982, the Midlands club faced Bayern Munich in the final and will now face off against the Bavarian side in the new group stage.
As for Luiz, it has been a slow start to life for the Brazilian at Juventus and he was criticised for his ‘slow’ start to life in Turin but the former City ace will have a chance to show his skills for the Italian side when they take on Villa in the third game of the Champions League season.
Aston Villa’s participation in the new Champions League format
With Villa’s qualification to the Champions League, the Midlands club will not be in the same four-group format.
Following the expansion of the competition to 36 teams, instead of a traditional group stage, all teams will instead compete against each other in a single table. Clubs will play eight matches against eight different teams, split evenly between home and away games.
The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the round of 16, while those that finish 25th or lower will be eliminated from all European competition.
The teams finishing in 9th to 24th place will compete in a two-legged play-off to secure their path to the last 16 of the Champions League.
It will certainly be a new experience for Villa and indeed every other club as they prepare for the 36 group competition.
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