Exclusive: Bad loser Emi Buendia happy to be winning the Unai Emery way

It was also, as Buendia admits with a smile, entirely true – no matter how much the Villa playmaker’s friendly, softly-spoken manner makes you struggle to believe it.

“One hundred per cent, yes,” he says. “My whole life I have been very competitive, from my first memories of being three or four years old. If I do something, I want to win. It is my nature.”

It is an attitude not only reserved for football. Sat in a room at Villa’s Bodymoor Heath training ground, Buendia reels off a long list of sports in which he’s competed, from basketball and tennis to pool and swimming.

He’s been pretty handy at them all. Despite first picking up a club just 18 months ago and never having had a lesson, his golf handicap is already down to 15.

“I think God touched me with something, to have the ability to play sports,” says Buendia.

“I consider myself a sportsman. I have the ability to understand every game and the ability to play, to understand the technique.”

While it is football in which he has most excelled, many watching a young Buendia in his hometown of Mar del Plata, in Argentina, once thought his future lay in rugby.

“My family is a rugby family,” Buendia explains. “Everyone played. My grandad, my dad, my cousins and my brother. I grew up with rugby in my veins.

“I’ve always loved the values of the game, the sportsmanship. You play the game and then have a meal with the other team. I’d travel to other cities for a weekend, stay with other kids. I really liked that.

"My brother lives in Madrid and plays amateur rugby. When I visit him, I love to go training. We have a rugby ball in the gym here (at Bodymoor) and I am always picking it up and making passes. It is something I love.

“My family and the people who watched me when I was very young, said I was better at rugby than football. But I always had the clear objective, from very young, to play football.”

If there was ever any doubt over which sport Buendia would prioritise, it ended at age 11 when he left his family and travelled across the Atlantic Ocean, having accepted an offer to join Real Madrid’s academy. Only since becoming a father himself has he come to fully appreciate the magnitude of the decision.

“I did not think, back then, as a proper person,” says Buendia. “I left everything; my mom, my dad, my brothers, just to play football because I wanted to become a professional footballer.

“Now I am a dad, with my own kids, I understand now how hard it was for my parents.”

The path from then to now has not always been smooth. Buendia has previously admitted how, more than once, he fought the urge to quit and fly home. Yet the competitive desire, coupled with his talent, saw him through.

In recent months, now chanelled in a new direction at Villa by Emery, the same spirit is helping take his game to new heights. Buendia speaks glowingly of Emery and his staff. The core message delivered to him, through a series of meetings and one-to-one chats, has essentially been to try and do more with less.

“Before I always wanted to participate in the game and touch the ball as much as possible,” he says. “Now I understand maybe it is better to touch the ball less but make better opportunities for my team-mates. That is one of the things I am learning.

“I always try to be patient and wait for the right moment to get the ball in a good position and make a difference in the attacking third.”

Having frequently found himself playing second fiddle to Philippe Coutinho under Emery’s predecessor, Steven Gerrard, Buendia has started every Premier League match under the Spaniard.

Since the turn of the year, he has scored four goals, while last weekend’s 3-0 win over Newcastle delivered a second assist in three matches and arguably his finest all-round performance since arriving at Villa Park from Norwich in a club record £38million deal two summers ago.

Despite struggling for consistency under Gerrard and Dean Smith, Buendia firmly rejects the notion the price tag might have weighed heavy.

“No, never,” he says. “I learned from a young age not to place too much importance on what people say to you, or if people hate you or don’t trust you. You have to believe in yourself.

“When I think about this challenge I never think about the price or expectancy of others. I just have my own objectives and work hard to get them.”

He continued: “Every week, with every game I am feeling better and better. I think I am reaching the best level I can play but with a lot of improving still to do.

“In my mind, when I think about the player I was when (Emery) arrived and the player I am now, I see a lot of improvement.

“I have had plenty of chats and meetings with him and his staff, with different people, to understand the game better and fix some positions and movement. When I look back, it is only a few months but it is a big change in my game.”

Learning to keep emotions in check has also been part of Emery’s teaching. While that fighting spirit will always be part of Buendia’s character and has made him the player and person he is today, experience has taught him the need for balance and perspective.

“I know my competitiveness is a strong thing for me but when it is not going well, it can be bad too,” he says.

“That is one of the things I have worked with the (coaching staff) to improve a lot, to try and control myself in a moment when I am desperate or frustrated or things are going wrong.

“I always want to win and always want the best for the team. Sometimes I get frustrated when we are doing things well but the results don’t come.

“Now, with age and experience, I try to enjoy more what I’m doing.

“My eldest son is four-and-a-half and has started to play football. He gets sad if he does not score a goal. I say: ‘Are you enjoying the game? Yes. That is the main thing. You do not need to score one or 10 goals to be happy playing football’.

“That is the main thing. That is what I have learned with age.”

Still aged just 26, Buendia is determined to keep climbing. A proud Argentinian who has quizzed close friend and team-mate Emi Martinez endlessly about their nation’s World Cup win, he was named in the squad for last month’s friendlies and admits playing at the next tournament, in 2026, is a major goal.

“I was close to the last one. I was part of the process,” he says. “In the end there could only be 26 in the squad but to be part of the initial 35/40 is still something of which I am very proud.

“I was part of the last squad, when we had all the celebrations back home. To live that personally and have my partner in the stands, was more than a dream.”

First there is plenty to play for with Villa. Saturday’s trip to Brentford is the first of seven matches during a run-in which will see Emery’s resurgent team face all of their rivals in the race for European football.

“One of the reasons I signed here was the ambition of this club, what they want to be and where they want to play,” says Buendia.

“To be part of this, after two seasons here, is great. We are sixth now in a very good place but there are seven important games now against big teams near the top of the league. It is a really good challenge, the games coming are the ones everyone wants to play because it is the chance to fight for something very special.”