Our team, the Aston Villa Football Club, fly off to take part in a European final. It still doesn’t seem real. What is real is Manchester City drawing at Bournemouth, which means Arsenal are champions. A week ago plucky little Bournemouth getting a point might have been a concern. Not now.

Dateline Istanbul and we’re talking about somewhere on the same latitude as southern Italy and Barcelona. So why is it pissing down? Not just rain but heavy, thundery torrential, the stuff that lasts for about ten minutes at home. Here it’s four hours of non-stop relentless, causing all sorts of chaos. Then it cleared up so there’s a steady half-hour descent down to the ground. The Freiburg supporters were in fine, synchronised voice and the neutral areas were about 98% Villa. We didn’t sing all that much because we didn’t have to.

This was Villa on just about the biggest stage possible, and not only were we behaving like we belonged, we were totally assured. Not arrogant. not complacent, just eleven players who knew what they were doing and what the end result would be. In the words of the late, great Justin in Minder, they didn’t just know. They knew. There was a slight bit of hesitation midway through the first half when the ref decided to be the most helpful Frenchman to the Germans since Marshal Petain, but that moment soon passed.

Two incredible goals just before half-time, one just after and there could have been more although that’s not Unai’s style. The ref put the opposition out of their misery earlier than scheduled and the onlooking Heroes of Rotterdam have to make room for a few more legends. It rained on the way back as well, and the hill was definitely steeper

Emiliano Buendia is man of the match, Morgan Rogers is player of the tournament, these two plus Superjohn Mcinn and the world’s number one, even with a broken finger, are in the team of the tournament. And everyone who said the Europa League is nothing worth getting worked up about can, quite frankly, fuck themselves sideways with a rusty chainsaw. Champions of Europe, we know what we are.

Next day the media attention is like nothing we’ve ever know. National front pages, main item on the news all day. Prince William is all over the place and so is former H&V tea boy Mat Kendrick. There’s a hastily-announced parade and as expected,Rogers, Ollie Watkins and Ezri Konsa are off to the World Cup. Unai’s final pre-match press conference is hardly a masterclass of strategic planning. Basically, if you’re sober you’re playing.

As is reflected in the team, but most definitely not in the performance. We were a goal down at half-time, Manchester City spent the second half pissing around with stage-managed substitutions and Ollie Watkins spent it scoring goals. Well, two but that was enough.