{"id":169308,"date":"2025-09-26T01:18:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T01:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/169308\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T01:18:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T01:18:14","slug":"aston-villa-vs-bologna-result-news-john-mcginn-goal-video-olivier-giroud-scores-winner-for-lille","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/169308\/","title":{"rendered":"Aston Villa vs Bologna result, news, John McGinn goal video, Olivier Giroud scores winner for Lille"},"content":{"rendered":"

An early goal from John McGinn helped Aston Villa<\/a> kick off their Europa League campaign with a gritty 1-0 group stage win over Bologna on Friday (AEST)<\/a>, while Olivier Giroud came off the bench to nod in a late winner in Lille’s dramatic 2-1 triumph against SK Brann.<\/p>\n

Scottish midfielder McGinn’s decisive goal came in the 13th minute, setting Villa off to a positive start in their European campaign at Villa Park.<\/p>\n

McGinn broke the deadlock when a cleverly worked short corner found him in space outside the box.<\/p>\n

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With precision, he struck a low shot that nestled into the bottom corner, leaving Bologna goalkeeper Lukasz Skorupski rooted to the spot.<\/p>\n

Ollie Watkins had a golden opportunity to double Villa’s lead in the 68th minute from the penalty spot, after being brought down by Martin Vitik.<\/p>\n

But his tame effort was easily saved by Skorupski.<\/p>\n

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Just minutes later, Bologna came agonisingly close to an equaliser when Santiago Castro’s powerful header crashed against the crossbar and bounced out of play.<\/p>\n

Villa has endured a frustrating start domestically, with three draws and two losses in the Premier League.<\/p>\n

But it has a coach who knows how to succeed in Europe: Unai Emery is the most successful manager in the second-tier Europa League with four titles, three with Sevilla and one with Villarreal.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Unai Emery of Villarreal celebrates with the Europa League trophy.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Emery led Villa to placings of fourth and sixth in the last two Premier League seasons and to the quarter-finals of the Champions League.<\/p>\n

But this season Villa is winless in the Premier League, scoring a single goal in five games and already eliminated from the English League Cup.<\/p>\n

McGinn admitted the win was vital.<\/p>\n

“It was important to get a win at home. Not our strongest start to the season, especially here,” he told TNT Sports.<\/p>\n

“Really difficult to play against (Bologna) but we had chances, missed the penalty which could have made it a more difficult night.<\/p>\n

“At this stage, we’ll take anything that’s coming.”<\/p>\n

NEW PODCAST! The crew unpack Ousmane Dembele’s Ballon d’Or win and have Manchester United really turned a corner?<\/p>\n

GIROUD FLIES HIGH FOR LILLE<\/p>\n

Substitute Giroud earlier emerged as Lille’s hero, rising high to head in a decisive late goal that spoiled Norway’s Brann’s long awaited return to European competition after 18 years.<\/p>\n

The French side secured a 2-1 home victory in a match filled with drama, as both teams were denied multiple times by the woodwork, with four shots striking the post or crossbar throughout the game.<\/p>\n

Frenchman Giroud, who turns 39 next week, soared above the defence to meet a cross in the 80th minute, powering a point blank header past the keeper and leaving Brann’s backline helpless.<\/p>\n

In Glasgow, 10 man Rangers fell 1-0 to Genk after Mohamed Diomande was sent off just before halftime.<\/p>\n

Oh Hyeon-gyu scored the winner in the 55th minute for the Belgian side, redeeming himself after missing a penalty earlier in the match.<\/p>\n

VfB Stuttgart began their Europa League campaign with a 2-1 home win over Celta Vigo, courtesy of second half goals from Badredine Bouanani and Bilal El Khannouss.<\/p>\n

Tanner Tessmann blasted in a stunning first time strike from distance into the top corner just 15 minutes from time to earn Olympique Lyonnais a hard fought 1-0 win at Utrecht.<\/p>\n

Two-time Europa League champions FC Porto escaped with a dramatic victory, as William Gomes struck deep into stoppage time to silence Salzburg and secure a precious 1-0 win.<\/p>\n

– with AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An early goal from John McGinn helped Aston Villa kick off their Europa League campaign with a gritty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-169308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}