Enzo Le Fee's magic lit up the Stadium of Light to inspire Sunderland to an unforgettable 1-0 win over AZ Alkmaar - and the Black Cats showed why they belong in Europe, writes CRAIG HOPE

He arrived in the Championship but is deserving of the Champions League. For now at least, Enzo Le Fee is the reason Sunderland are playing, and winning, in the Europa League.

Just when this big occasion demanded a big player to conjure a big moment, the little magician from Brittany reached into his bag of tricks, bamboozled AZ Alkmaar’s defenders and cast a spell over a home crowd that will last a lifetime. They will not forget this night.

It was in the 65th minute that Le Fee won and then converted the penalty that meant Sunderland’s first European fixture in 53 years ended in a deserved victory. No player deserved that place in the history books more than him. He had illuminated the Stadium of Light long before his goal, just like he did last season. The 26-year-old, once of Roma, is a special, special player. He, just like the occasion, did not disappoint.

‘You need good players in the right moment,’ said Black Cats boss Regis Le Bris. ‘And Enzo is a great player. He can create, he can score, he can help in defence. Yes, he’s great!’

Sunderland’s stadium took its name from one of European football’s greatest venues, Benfica’s Estadio da Luz. Opened in 1997 with the dream of continental nights like this, as recently as five years ago there was not so much light as the darkness of League One. It was Accrington, not Alkmaar. Morecambe, not Milan.

But this is not the story of a plucky underdog, dining at a table at which they do not really belong. Sunderland should be playing in Europe. Sunderland should wave their flags and plant them loudly and proudly on foreign soil this autumn. Come spring, Sunderland should still be in this competition. They’re here not by winning a cup - as they last were in 1973 - but by finishing seventh in the world’s strongest league.

This game was not really about the result, either. It was about ‘I was there’, and I want to be here again. Half a century and more is a long time between European nights. The last one came at Roker Park, against Sporting Lisbon, in a competition that no longer exists. There are supporters here who have lived through an entire generation between continental visitors. For others, this was the first taste, sight and smell of something they had only ever watched and imagined happening elsewhere. For the majority, this was not European football coming back to Wearside, it was the arrival of it.

That was certainly the pervading feeling among those on the playing side. Le Bris and captain Granit Xhaka have been singing from the same hymn sheet this week, chorusing the message that this is just the start, not the final destination. It was, however, never going to be an understated opening to this chapter.

The guttural release when the teams emerged, the same raw sound when League One survivor Trai Hume took out Ayoub Oufkir and the giddy shrieks of the barely believable when Le Fee almost scored direct from an early corner all ensured that the action on the pitch satisfied the anticipation in the stands. This was good. Great, even. Sunderland were playing in Europe, and they were playing well.

Defender Kevin Danso, scorer of one League Cup goal in three years at Tottenham, went in search of the Puskas Award with a 25-yard dipper tipped over by Jari De Busser. Le Fee’s shot then tested the base of the post and this stadium’s plastic seating, given the 48,000 who crashed back into theirs in despair. Or maybe that’s the wrong word, because there was nothing despairing about Sunderland’s performance.

But Alkmaar were good, too. That helped. This felt proper. Loaded with academy products, we will no doubt see the likes of midfielder Kees Smit and forward Ro-Zangelo Daal in the Premier League at some point, even if at inflated fees. Maybe Sunderland, of Europe, will be shopping in that market.

To get here, their recruitment has been rather more shrewd. Take Xhaka. Rarely will £17m be better spent on a player north of 30 years old. To the left of him, on the wing, was a team-mate who could represent the future direction, £31m deadline-day signing Malick Fofana. Not that the Belgium international, 21, appears on the same page as his colleagues just yet.

The page-turner, rather, was Le Fee.

There was, though, a period around the hour that was something of a European tutorial for the home side. Their energy, understandably, had faded. AZ took charge, teasing and weaving passes and patterns. How would Sunderland respond? Well, give the ball to Le Fee, of course.

And so, in the 64th minute, he weaved a pattern of his own, right through the penalty area. Just as he was about to shoot, he was tripped. Penalty. He missed last weekend against Arsenal. He was not missing this one.