Away: we go forth into the last sixteen where the team squad’s line-up like a sculptured tableau. Roma! Brighton! scrolling piazzas on the phone screen until we fall asleep. Trevi fountain water runs crystal blue and white under the late February drizzle where the gentle bubbles float. I am sure it is good to be near water after travelling so far from our beach.

A time and place to try and not worry about absence. Mitoma and Lamptey, Fati and Estupinan, not to mention Nick, or rather, Adingra. I’m hopeful that at least some of these Albion players will be there and fit in the eternal city ready to take their place under the paparazzi bulb. I thought I saw Nick on the corner of Waterloo Street right where he used to take a hot yoga class guided by a guru from Varanasi.

Right now, it's developing into a neat little Qigong area, up here, in this part of Hove, and over there, for the away fans in Rome, it’s the right time of year for affogato. Peroni! Moretti! all round as De Zerbi’s in Rome to continue our club’s trans-europa-express-kling-klang-adaptation.

Up the Albion (Home), this is a phrase to structure discourse like our number 5 at the back. Position, switch, move to space, receive pass, play the ball, distribute, spread, press, strike, block, re-position. To think Southgate passed on one of the best centre-backs of our generation. How good would it have been in the Euro 2020 final to not concede to Italy’s centre-back, Bonucci, in the last quarter?

Everyone just knew that a choker like Southgate would never give a talent like Dunk a chance. And you know what, that’s why club football is so good. Little place to hide in actual competitions. Brighton are off to Rome, leave all the bullshit in England behind. Inflation, ignorance, and Nick’s there at the top of the stairs looking down at me as I walk up. Open-eyed, he gazes in silence, the noise of the stadium echoes down the Tribuna Tevere as we re-open the Quaderni Rossi. Net shakes as the ball hits, crossing the line. Now, it’s the time of gli anni di piombo.

Around the city, the sound of roman cornu. Players walk down the tunnel to the arena (with manager, assistant, analyst, conditioning coach, fitness coach, physio) and the crowd clap. Creating flux, a team built to adapt. Where other teams look for players, we search. We beat and drew with Marseille. We’re in the competition with everyone from Benfica to Sparta Praha.

July, 2013, mate, mate, mate, mate, it seems a long time ago that we lost 3-1 in a pre-season friendly to Villareal. Barnes, Crofts, Buckley, and the ever-injured ‘Dagger’, it felt like a mountain to climb. Insert your own emoji. This sentence is about a snake whose name has five letters which starts with the letters B and R, has the letters U and N and in the middle, and ends with an OOO. Across the field of play now, I get excited by the creation of numerical overloads which puncture the opposition in their metaphorical-abdomen.

Unstoppable, because we play through the press. Passing over the two infant brothers. Trading Post has opened and replaces Small Batch on the corner of Norfolk Square, opposite Bankers.

High on whatever, outside the Co-op they run their hub – eating, shouting, self-soothing, sleeping, fighting, and shitting on the street. Everyone’s got a story in this end zone. Albion’s ends: the cold grey winter sea whose haunting soundtrack is the city’s Deliveroo bike-drivers mass horn-beeping protests. Living for now in the i-talk lounge.

Bashing down beers in smart casual. I believe shoes, boots, trainers, and canvas shoes are allowed, but flip-flops are not. Our present situation is different: it precedes and paves the way for a later stage. Now-now, raise your voices up.

Dancing to Bad Manners and singing about Ansu. There’s so much in life about this city to get your back up. Life as an eternal tenant. Remembering who’s on our bench. Competing against a mega-club like Roma is a dream for sure, a dream of glory to crave.

Drawn by a fascination with sculpture and Byron and Berlioz, and by a desire to see something new and different – a win over Roma. Even the biggest clubs like Roma run afoul. But let’s just say it, and say it straight: either way, it is always a real joy to follow our club. Still dancing to Bad Manners and singing about Fati. The pulse of the crowd's chant on match day rises into an arpeggio.

RIP Mario Tronti, siamo con voi, grazie compagno.

Brighton, Europa 2024.

@LeeChristien