There's only one Villa, correct? Another one where I come down on the side of British, not UK usage.
We've done this one before and I quoted a few examples.
Band names - (UK) "Queen are..."" (US) Queen is..."
In this instance, I'd say that "Queen" may be a singular word, but it stands for a group of four people, hence it's effectively plural.
After all, everyone would say "The Beatles are...", not "The Beatles is...". The final "s" is irrelevant, the main thing is that more than one person is being referred to.
Same with a football club. "Aston Villa" isn't a singular "thing" (in the sense that, say, "Villa Park" is). It's a whole load of people - the players, the staff, and even the fans. So'd I'd always say "Aston Villa are great", not "Aston Villa is great", which just sounds wrong.
An exception might be if you were using a very specific context, such as "'Aston Villa' is a good name for a club" - where you are talking about a singular thing - the name - rather than the collective that is the club itself. They do this in Australia and elsewhere too a lot of the time. It is appalling. Even worse than calling it soccer.
Arrrghh! yes this drives me up the wall. When I read the match reports on the Today's Zaman web site they write in the really odd American style. It drives me mad.