There are moments as a football supporter when you stop and think: how on earth did we get here?
For me, one of those moments arrived while looking at flights to Belgium.
Not because Brussels was necessarily high on my list of places to visit, nor because I had always dreamed of spending an autumn evening trying to navigate public transport in a foreign language.
But because Sunderland were involved.
A few years ago, that sentence would have sounded ridiculous.
At the height of lockdown, I sat in my living
room watching Sunderland attempt to escape League One. The world felt strange, football felt strange, and the club itself seemed trapped in a loop of false dawns and frustration.
Week after week, we convinced ourselves this would be the season.
Then it was not.
The names changed. The managers changed. The excuses changed. The outcome rarely did.
Draws under Jack Ross. Mid-table under Phil Parkinson. Bolton away under Lee Johnson.
They all seem so distant, yet so close.
Back then, European football belonged to other clubs. European nights were things Sunderland supporters watched on television while wondering whether we could get a result away at Fleetwood.
If somebody had told me then that I would one day be counting down to a Europa League campaign beginning against AZ Alkmaar, I would have assumed they had mistaken us for somebody else.
Yet here we are.
That is the strange thing about football. It rarely changes your life all at once. Instead, it moves in tiny, almost imperceptible steps.
One result. One season. One promotion. One unforgettable afternoon. One manager who gets it right. One player who becomes a hero.
Then suddenly you look up and realise Sunderland are preparing for European football.
The funny thing is that supporters remember the big moments, but it is often the unremarkable ones that make them meaningful.
Everyone will remember where they were when Ballard scored that header. Everyone remembers that VAR decision at Wembley. Everyone remembers the moments that made this feel possible.
What I find myself thinking about are the evenings in League One. The mid-table frustrations. The matches that felt like they would never matter. The years spent wondering whether Sunderland would ever feel like Sunderland again.
Perhaps that is why Wednesday feels special.
Not because AZ Alkmaar are arriving. Not because European football is finally back. Not even because Sunderland have earned the right to be there.
It feels special because so many of us never truly believed we would.
Supporters spend years convincing themselves that better days are coming. Most of the time, those better days arrive quietly.
This one has arrived carrying passports, flight confirmations and away-ticket applications.
Just ask my wife.
A few years ago, Georgia was watching Sunderland alongside me simply because she did not want me sitting alone during lockdown.
Now she is the one leading discussions about Brussels, ticket sales and how we might squeeze a European away day out of a city break.
What began as keeping me company through League One has somehow evolved into planning trips across Europe because Sunderland happen to be there.
Football can be wonderfully ridiculous sometimes.
And perhaps that is the biggest thing Europe represents.
Not prestige. Not money. Not status.
Possibility.
The possibility of new memories. New journeys. New stories. The possibility of Sunderland taking us somewhere we have never been before, literally and figuratively.
By the time the referee blows the whistle against AZ Alkmaar, there will be supporters inside the Stadium of Light who sat through League One campaigns wondering if those days would ever end.
Supporters who travelled to grounds they barely want to remember. Supporters who endured the false starts, the play-off heartbreak and the endless frustration. Supporters who kept turning up regardless.
It’s the hope they can’t stand.
Yet somehow, they never stopped believing.
That is who I will be thinking about.
People like my brother. Long after my own away-day life had come to an end, he was still there. Cold Tuesday nights. Tiny grounds. Endless miles.
He never stopped. There was always next week.
We used to joke that we’d be in Europe in a few years and that one day all of it would be worth it.
Somehow, it turned out to be true. Because European football did not start against AZ Alkmaar. Not really.
It started years ago.
On cold nights. On frustrating afternoons. On impossible journeys. In half-empty living rooms during lockdown.
It started every time Sunderland supporters convinced themselves to believe one more time. They couldn’t stop falling in love, week after week.
Europe is simply where the journey happens to have taken us.
And that is why, when Dance of the Knights starts and the teams emerge on Wednesday night, I suspect I will find myself smiling.
Not because Sunderland are in Europe.
Because I still cannot quite believe Sunderland are in Europe.
