Jan Paul van Hecke has revealed he loved the Europa League challenge – and is “upset” it is already over.

The Albion centre-back enhanced his growing reputation with his performance on the UEFA stage.

He relished the chance to impress a Dutch audience in the double over Ajax and caught the eye in the vain pursuit of a four-goal home win over Roma.

Attention will switch to pushing for another European place when Premier League action resumes in almost a fortnight’s time.

Asked how he enjoyed Europe, van Hecke told The Argus: “A lot. These are the games you want to play in.

“It’s incredible. The atmosphere was incredible as well.

“It’s really nice to play in the Europa League and now we definitely want to go back there and we are going to fight for it.

“I think the group stage was really good but then we go away to Roma and lose 4-0 and you know it is a really hard task to do.

“It didn’t work out and we are upset about that.”

Van Hecke twice went close with headers at home to Roma and would have loved to have scored the goal which put the Serie A side on edge.

He said: “The belief was there, otherwise there is no real point playing.

“We told each other we need to believe and we need to go for it.

“I think we did. You could see the effort was incredible.

“You have got to score your chances and have a bit of luck and I think it didn’t work out.

“I should have scored one. Maybe you get to 2-0 and they get a bit more nervous because it felt like they were not panicking but they were more nervous because they felt like we were strong.

“But it was not enough.”