> **Dave Woodhall sees Villa beat Maccabi Tel Aviv on a thankfully quiet night all-round.**
**As expected, there were numerous disruptions to my match-going experience on Thursday night. An archaic organisation was totally unable to relate to the demands of the twenty-first century and left many people who only wanted to watch a game of football severely inconvenienced. But enough of West Midlands Railways, who yet again gave more evidence to my belief that they were set up purely to annoy me.**
As for the pre-match build-up, it proved the old adage that the more violence is predicted, the less it actually happens. Getting to Villa Park later than I expected there didn’t seem much for the battalion of police to do, except a couple of desultory tickets checks. There were a handful of pro-Israeli protesters on Witton Lane and a noisy pro-Palestine gathering by the Trinity Road gates, which meant getting in was a lot easier as it drew a considerable crowd of curious onlookers. There were also a strange collection of trainspotter types walking around with GoPros and camera equipment. No, I don’t know either.
Then at a few minutes after eight a football match broke out. A delayed kick-off had been widely predicted but this was more down to Villa having overdone the pyrotechnics than anything untoward. There was the usual resting of a few players with the most significant signs the appearance of Youri Tielemans and Emiliano Buendia on the bench. From the off it seemed that they were the lucky ones.
The match was like so many early rounds cup-ties endured over the past couple of decades. Villa seemed to have learned little from the cock-ups of the previous Europa game and strolled around as though winning the match was a matter of course. This had the usual effect and Maccabi came closest to scoring as well as going through the Villa midfield with worrying ease. The eyes of the world were on Villa Park tonight and the world must have been laughing for the first forty-five minutes as Villa struggled to handle a collection of olive pickers and orange growers. Then Morgan Rogers found Ian Maatsen and the one genuine bit of quality in the first-half put Villa into the lead.
Anyone who thought this might lead to a second-half goal avalanche was sorely mistaken as Villa vaguely improved without looking much like scoring until Ezri Konsa went down in the box and after a lengthy debate between the referee and most of the Maccabi team Donyell Mallen stepped up for Villa’s second. As expected a clutch of substitutes came on, including the welcome return of Tielemans, who sprayed the ball around effortlessly and looked head and shoulders above everyone else on the pitch.
Villa didn’t seem all that bothered about getting another while Maccabi also appeared happy with the scoreline. Their players had been going down at any excuse throughout the match but this was the first time I’ve seen a team playing for time when they were two down with a couple of minutes remaining. It’s ironic that their supporters are reputedly some of the most fearsomely battle-hardened in the world when their players have the tenacity of librarians.
The end of the match saw much the same anti-climax as the rest of the day. If I had to choose a player of the match I’d either give it to the Maccabi physio, who covered every blade of grass, or else the woman with the megaphone on Trinity Road. She was belting it out before the match, she was still at it afterwards and I daresay she didn’t stop while the game was on. For all I know she may still be on Aston Park now.
### _Related_