I had the same thought, where the match between Ajax and Aston Villa deserved to take place in the semifinals or final, but the lottery brought them together in the round of 16. On paper, Ajax is in a bad period this season, their performance had dropped significantly and has touched the degradation zone in the Eredivisie. Acting as host will not necessarily benefit Ajax, the best result that can possibly be obtained is a draw.
On the other hand, Aston Villa is in its best overall performance, Unai Emery fleet is even able to stay in the top four of the EPL standings to date. In terms of squad strength and depth, it is clear that Aston Villa currently deserves to be the favorite when facing Ajax, and betting on Aston Villa winning is quite safe.
Personally, I see Aston Villa as one of the teams that has the potential to reach the final round, other teams that have a chance in my opinion are Fiorentina and Fenerbahce. However, let's see how the last 16 of the Confederacy League will go run, the teams in this competition are difficult to predict. Not a few teams are able to display a different performance than in their Domestic League.
We can say the Ajax vs Aston Villa match as the initial final of the Conference League, the two teams so far have a much different performance in their respective leagues still, Ajax who will play at home today certainly does not want to waste their chance to get a trophy after their chances in the league disappear, while Aston Villa, which was previously a title challenger in the Premier League, will certainly also focus the Conference League as a target to get the trophy, So far both teams have the same high motivation and of course with a good enough performance that allows us to see a match that is indeed very exciting today, Unai Emery expertise in bringing the team he coached to become European champions so far is one of my reasons if Aston Villa will be able to beat Ajax with a narrow score later.
But even so, I'm pretty sure whoever wins today will be one of the teams that can reach the final, my prediction for the other team that is likely to reach the final is fenerbache, and Aston Villa or Ajax will be one of the teams that might challenge fenerbache later.