Joao Pedro and Kaoru Mitoma: Brighton's Europa League dream ultimately died on the treatment table

For Albion fans of a certain age, myself included, back in the day the only way Brighton could have got into Europe would have been by writing a song.

But those long standing dreams turned into a reality with the ‘Albion European Tour 23/24’.

For me personally its been a blast, quality time away with Harty Junior, before he embarks on parenthood. Four legendary cities, Marseille, Amsterdam. Athens and Rome, some of the greatest atmospheres I’ve witnessed in any football stadium.

Results, taking that night in Rome out of the equation, have been good. After a slow start, lest we forget, 110 minutes into the experience, we’d lost at home and were two nil down in the South of France, but we dug deep, showed our true character and won our group.

Given where this club were 25 years ago, should the last 16 exit be deemed as failure? Clearly not.

As the legendary Liam Brady once famously said at Canvey Island: “If your granny had wheels she’d be a bus” (or words to that effect), and as the dust settles after Roma’s 4-1 aggregate win, firstly there’s no excuses the best team over the 180 minutes won the tie, but there is a huge caveat to that.

I’m a Brighton fan, accepting defeat on numerous occasions is a pre requisite, however one huge factor looms over this while episode.

We will never know, but that in itself is part of life’s rich tapestry, but did the Albion’s European dream effectively die on the treatment table?

In Joao Pedro and Karou Mitoma you have arguably two of the most gifted players to ever pull on a blue and white shirt. To have them missing for two of the biggest games in the club’s history is huge factor.

To reiterate its all speculation, but I will take to my grave, that if both players had been fit to play in both Roma games, on the strength of what we saw over the 180 or so minutes, Brighton would have won.

But they didn’t. So like Gordon Smith’s shot being saved by Gary Bailey in 1983, we will never truly know what might have been.

What we do know is, Albion now have more than two weeks off due to the FA Cup and international break, Pedro is believed to be back for the Liverpool away game on Easter Sunday.

Then, cliché alert, the Albion have 10 ‘cup finals’ to navigate through in order to get to a minimum seventh place to guarantee another crack at European football next (8th place if Man City or Arsenal win the CL).

With a fired up RDZ in the dug out and a rejuvenated Pedro up top, can anyone totally rule out us doing it again?