There is nothing Unai Emery loves more than a Europa League final.

The Basque coach already holds the record for winning the Europa League more than any other manager, securing three consecutive titles with Sevilla from 2014 to 2016 and another with Villarreal in 2021. On Wednesday, the 54-year-old has the chance to extend that record to five when Aston Villa faces Freiburg in the final in Istanbul (20:00 BST). But how does he stack up against the best European trophy-winning managers of all time? Here is an attempt to rank the top 10.

A Look at the Omissions

A quick nod to some of those who do not make the list. Udo Lattek won all three European trophies with different clubs: a European Cup with Bayern Munich, a Uefa Cup with Borussia Mönchengladbach, and a Cup Winners' Cup with Barcelona. Sven-Goran Eriksson led Gothenburg to a Uefa Cup, won a Cup Winners' Cup with Lazio, and lost European and Uefa Cup finals with Benfica. Raymond Goethals lifted the Champions League with Marseille in 1993 and led Anderlecht to Cup Winners' Cup success in 1978. Then there's Jürgen Klopp, a Champions League winner in 2019 and three-time runner-up, and Brian Clough, who clinched successive European Cups with Nottingham Forest. Celtic great Jock Stein, the first British manager to win the continent's top trophy and a beaten finalist in 1970, is also notable for his absence.

The Top 10 Trophy Winners

Of course, European Cup and Champions League titles carry more weight here than second-tier European competitions, but that is not to diminish those achievements. Emery thrives in the Europa League environment. His other trophies have come at Paris Saint-Germain, where, despite domestic dominance, the iconic moment of his tenure was a dramatic collapse at Barcelona in the Champions League last 16. He later guided Villarreal to the semi-finals. Wednesday will be his sixth Europa League final, and that is enough to sneak him in at number 10.

Johan Cruyff's achievements as a manager are hard to quantify through trophies. His real legacy lies in the foundations he laid at Ajax and Barcelona, and the influence of his innovative ideas and philosophies on subsequent managers. In his short managerial career, Cruyff led a young and exciting Ajax side to Cup Winners' Cup glory in 1987 and a turbulent Barcelona era to another Cup Winners' Cup crown. The culmination of Cruyff's work came in 1992 when Barcelona's 'Dream Team' won the European Cup for the first time in the club's history.

Giovanni Trapattoni won two European Cups as a player with AC Milan before guiding the Rossoneri to the brink of more continental success as caretaker boss. Milan were beaten in the 1974 Cup Winners' Cup final by Magdeburg, but that would not be the end of Trapattoni's European success. During two spells at Juventus, he won a European Cup, a Cup Winners' Cup, and two Uefa Cups, plus another during a sabbatical at Inter.