Facing former employers PSG for the first time in his career, Unai Emery instructed his men to contain their opponents in the early stages, but the energetic hosts still forced some attempts on goal.
Both Vitinha and Ousmane Dembele called Emiliano Martinez into saves before the former struck powerfully over the Villa crossbar.
While breakaways of their own were scarce, the visitors were effective at disrupting PSG’s tempo and started to command more and more of the possession as the first half wore on.
All Villa needed was an opening, and their quality shone through on 35 minutes as they sensationally took the lead.
John McGinn won the ball back on the halfway line and swept it across field to Marcus Rashford, who played in Youri Tielemans down the left. The Belgian then slid the ball across the face of the goal for Morgan Rogers to arrive and finish, sending the away end into pandemonium.
However, their hard work was undone by a moment of brilliance just a few minutes later, when Desire Doue drifted in from the left, evaded Rogers, and then fired an unstoppable drive into the far top corner.
Doue continued to rip apart the Villa backline until the break, and his side were still rolling after the restart to take the lead for the first time.
Fabian Ruiz spread it out to the left, and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who made light work of getting past Axel Disasi before rifling into the roof of the net from a tight angle.
The hosts remained utterly dominant, with Achraf Hakimi among the players to go close, but they didn’t make the most of their chances and even allowed their opponents an opening or two in the late exchanges, including for PSG loanee Marco Asensio.
But just as it looked as though Villa were going to admirably make it to the final whistle with just the one-goal deficit, Dembele played a through ball to Nuno Mendes, who bore down on goal and turned both defender and goalkeeper before calmly slotting in the third.
That makes Villa’s job in the second leg a degree harder, while PSG remain favourites to win both this competition and the Coupe de France after lifting the Ligue 1 trophy last weekend.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (PSG)