SAINTS captain Jose Fonte has described the prospect of leading the team out in the Europa League this week as a dream.

Ronald Koeman’s side are preparing to host Vitesse on Thursday, in the first leg of their third qualifying round tie.

The match will come 12 years after the club last competed in Europe, and it is a source of enormous pride to Fonte that he will wear the armband for the occasion.

The centre-half, who took up the captain’s role at the start of last season and who has been an integral part of Saints’ incredible journey from League One to this stage, said: “It will be like a dream, so I’m looking forward to it, obviously.”

Vitesse were the highest-ranked unseeded team in the draw for this round, meaning they are the toughest side – on paper – that Saints could have been pitted against.

But Fonte sees it in a different light, arguing that the Dutch side might suit them better than certain other outfits.

“I think it would be worse for us to go to Ukraine, or one of them far countries where you probably won’t have the conditions and the good pitch to play, so for us we’re going to play in a good stadium, on a good pitch, against a decent side, and we have confidence in ourselves,” he said.

Fonte believes last week’s 3-0 friendly win away to Feyenoord – who finished one place above Vitesse in last season’s Eredivisie – shows there is nothing for Saints to fear.

“Feyenoord is a bigger club, and we still showed that we were levels above them, so we’re going to approach this game like any other – full detail and attention, and we will do our best to win,” he said.

While qualifying for the Europa League represented a significant achievement for Saints, the club will not be satisfied with simply making it into the competition.

It is one they hope they can also perform well in, but, before considering how far they can go, Fonte insists the focus has to be on reaching the group stages, which will require the team to overcome Vitesse and then win another two-legged play-off encounter.

“Listen, it’s a long, long competition,” he said.

“First, we need to make sure we’re in the group stages and then we go step by step, but, for now, we need to focus on Vitesse, because that’s the next challenge.”