Aberdeen midfielder Connor Barron reckons they should have been European heroes this season instead of their succession of hard luck tales.
The Dons are on a high after defeating Hibs with ten men to reach the Viaplay Cup Final against Rangers next month in the semi-final on Sunday.
But they face a daunting task tomorrow in Greece against PAOK in the fourth round of games in the Europa Conference League.
So far this season in Europe, it's been a story of 'what if' for Barry Robson's side after a host of missed opportunities.
In the Europa League play-off round, they fought back to take a 2-2 draw with Swedish champions Hacken back to Pittodrie only to lose at home despite having almost 30 shots on goal.
They won plenty of plaudits for their display against last year's Europa League winners Eintracht Frankfurt in Germany with Dante Polvara equalising and a late missed volley from Ester Solker almost earned them a point in a 2-1 defeat.
READ MORE: Kelle Roos says Hibs' Dylan Vente tried to 'do him in'
Then worst of all, they blew a 2-0 lead at home to the Greeks with 17 minutes to left, were denied a clear penalty and lost out to a VAR penalty decision to lose 3-2 at Pittodrie last month.
And Barron, who has recaptured his previous excellent form this season, insists they are kicking themselves.
He said: "If you look at the Hacken game, Helsinki, PAOK and Frankfurt - every game we played we should have got a result. We have just been unlucky.
"Whether that is because we are new to the competition and some players haven’t played there, I don’t know.
"We take confidence from every single one of those games. We learn from it and move on taking the positives and the negatives.
"We could have managed the PAOK game a bit better. As players on the pitch we should have seen that game out.
"But I feel my game is improving by playing these teams 100 per cent. When I go away with the Scotland U21s we play against these players who perform in these leagues week in week out.
"So I can kind of relate in that sense because the players we are playing against are quite similar. The way these teams try to play football suits me as well.
"I like to test myself against the best players out there. We have dealt with the teams really well but have just been unlucky in the games that we did not get the results we should.
"We can take confidence from the performances but now it is about us getting results."
Barron admitted the PAOK defeat was a particularly hard result to swallow. He said: "It was hard. It didn’t really settle in until a few days after. But that is just football when you play against top teams and top players.
"Every time you give the ball away you know you are going to get punished. Unfortunately, we just switched off at crucial points in the game and it cost us in the end.
"To go two goals up against one of the best teams in Greece, they are a top, top team so we have to take confidence from that. And from the way we played in the first 70 minutes.
"We take it over to Greece. That is the atmosphere you want to be playing in. Over here you have it at Ibrox, Celtic Park and Pittodrie.
"It is something I thrive off of and we really need to take it in our stride over there. We have experienced boys like Graeme Shinnie, Jonny Hayes, and Kelle Roos who have played on this stage who can help the younger boys who maybe haven’t had a taste of it yet."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here