Barcelona's road back to the top runs through Lamine Yamal and Raphinha, and Aston Villa got a front row seat

There are normal ways to build up to a marquee UEFA Champions League match and there's Aston Villa , for whom the top searches under Google's news tab were all about being taken seriously. This was hardly an exercise in projecting confidence ahead of a trip to Barcelona ; the club picked a fight with a broadcaster instead because, for some reason, they deemed he had the power "to stop our ascension in English and European football." Villa's year-over-year improvements are hard to deny, to the point that being somewhat competitive at the Camp Nou on Tuesday was not out…