Juaben’s love for Villa stems from his grandfather Daniel, who used to stay with a Villa-supporting family from Birmingham.
“When we were kids he used to tell us stories and history about Aston Villa,” Boakye said. “He used to talk about a certain player called ‘God’.”
The football ‘god’ was Paul McGrath, who made more than 250 appearances for Villa between 1989 and 1996.
McGrath was part of the squad when Villa won their most recent trophy, the 1996 League Cup.
Since then, a new generation of Villa fans in Juaben have been “waiting” for the club to make history.
That was until Youri Tielemans, Emi Buendia and Morgan Rogers scored against Freiburg.
“It was amazing. What a time to be alive – the whole community coming together to support Aston Villa,” Boakye said.
“During 1982, when we won our first European Cup, most of the fans here yesterday, we were not born. We were waiting for our own history yesterday.”
