Sunderland’s Algarve Adventure: Sun, Sagres, and stellar signings shine

The seven or so weeks since that magical weekend at Wembley seem to have flashed by in the blink of an eye. One tiny drawback from the belated ecstasy of winning promotion via the playoffs is that the club were unable to confirm their pre-season plans until relatively short notice. You could argue that Sunderland’s priority as a professional sports club should be optimal preparation for their multi-million-pound athletes rather than helping fans plan our annual summer piss-up, but it’s still annoying.

My initial request for annual leave was knocked back as too many of my colleagues were already off, but with the FOMO kicking in, I for some reason devised an elaborate plan to fly over on Friday afternoon with my laptop in tow, log on to work from Portugal on Monday, then get the early flight home on Tuesday having watched us make light work of Sevilla and Sporting Lisbon.

I said it was a plan – I never said it was a good one.

Another minor and baffling inconvenience occurred when I arrived at my hostel in Albufeira to learn that it had in fact been closed for two years, and that either somehow no one had ever informed Booking.com of this, or they hadn’t bothered to make a note of it. Thankfully, I was saved from the prospect of camping out on the beach by two fellow London branch members, who spotted me anxiously scrolling through my phone for alternative accommodation, and offered me a spare spot at their hotel right next to the beach. Hopefully this stroke of good fortune was an omen for things to come.

Photo by Fran Santiago/Getty Images

Sunderland fans congregated in good numbers around the Old Town Square, with a shrewd performer giving us a rousing rendition of I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You. There were (perhaps unsurprisingly) also a fair few Newcastle shirts knocking about who received the customary abuse. I will honestly never understand that lot; if I’d booked a holiday and found out the Mags were playing there for pre-season, I’d cancel it faster than Armand Laurienté’s medical.

As is tradition for blokes’ summer holidays, a few of our number got overly carried away, and one ended up sleeping on the beach after losing his keys and forgetting where the hotel was. All par for the course, then.

We dusted ourselves down and got back on the Super Bocks before our taxi to the Sevilla game at the rather remotely located Estádio Algarve.

We’ve had some interesting choices of venues for these pre-season games; from the much smaller Estádio Municipal in Albufeira where the floodlights packed in at half-time, to the half-baseball pitch in Albuquerque, to the now infamous Pinatar Arena in Spain last year, where not only beer, but even bottled water and sun cream were verboten.

Thankfully this year’s location did at least permit those basic human necessities, which is a step in the right direction, but it was much less useful for these 8pm games than it was in the baking 5 o’clock kick-offs we were left to slowly cook under last summer.

Photo by Gualter Fatia/Getty Images

We settled into our seats behind the dugouts to see a strong-looking Sunderland side decked out in our majestic royal-blue-and-white away kit. Sevilla had brought a fair few noisy fans across the border, and it made for an enjoyable atmosphere as Sunderland stamped our authority on the game. Our new midfield additions looked dynamic and composed, and Adingra is clearly an unpredictable but threatening presence on the wing.

Le Fée capitalised on an underhit back-pass to give us the lead, and you felt that if we’d kept the starting squad for the whole game, we’d have notched up an impressive win. This being pre-season, however, meant that this was never on the cards, and a much less experienced line-up took the field at half-time. It was quite amusing seeing the officials still showing the numbers for the subs about twenty minutes after kick-off.

The second-half team battled gamely but weren’t able to control the game the way their counterparts had, and you felt that an equaliser was inevitable. One lad sat behind me was a bag of nerves, constantly begging for clearances and wincing every time a cross came in. Given that this was a meaningless friendly, I genuinely don’t know how he survived the playoffs.

Having booked an Uber home for 10pm sharp, we had to leave just as added time began, so we only learned of Sevilla’s equaliser from that unusual “oooahh” noise that European fans make after goals. It was a shame we couldn’t hold out for the win, but we competed well against strong opposition, and it was great for our new recruits to put on a promising show.

Having to log on to work “remotely” (or “remotely work”, to recycle an old joke) the next day, I missed out on another day and night of nonsense in the Old Town. This allegedly included one of the inflatable cats from Wembley being passed around from bar to bar, and a fan unplugging the TV on someone singing Sam Fender on karaoke. You do have to love how much we own our pettiness.

Photo by Gualter Fatia/Getty Images

After the last tedious Teams message was sent, it was time to return to the ground to see us face Portuguese champions Sporting Lisbon. As you’d expect, there were plenty of green-and-white shirts in the crowd, but it was a great atmosphere between the two fanbases and another useful workout for the team.

It was slightly disappointing that we couldn’t find the net, but both the teams we fielded put in solid and encouraging performances again, and most fans left the ground reflecting on what had been another fruitful pre-season outing.

While we’re not quite reaching “thick-and-fast” games territory, it’s a short turnaround before the trip up to Edinburgh to face Hearts, and hopefully the summer of ‘25 will have even more positive surprises in store.