My brother Zak had begun planning Sunderland’s European away trips before we’d even finished qualifying for them. Projected pots were studied, possible fixtures considered and the practicalities of places we hadn’t yet been drawn against discussed as though they were already on the calendar.
Once the fixtures were confirmed, so was his intention to attend them all. It was ambitious, perhaps faintly ridiculous, and completely understandable. Sunderland had spent 53 years away from European competition. If the club was finally going back, Zak wanted to be there.
I wasn’t there myself, so to tell the story properly I asked Zak, who was, to talk me through the whole trip. I sent him a series of questions, from the planning and journey to the match itself and what stayed with him afterwards. What follows is his European away day, told through his answers and with a little brotherly interpretation from me.
He was even a bit surprised when the flights were booked. Our family and his mates certainly did, even though he’d attended every game for the previous two years. Maybe it was simply the startling realisation that his meticulously maintained Excel spreadsheet finally had some practical value. A Thursday night match in Portugal still required a different level of commitment, as well as rather more consideration than the usual away day.
The first problem was working out where Torreense would actually play the game. Leiria and Faro were both possibilities. Once Leiria was confirmed, there was Porto or Lisbon to choose between, the question of how to reach the city, whether a bus would get them back and whether an overnight stay would be needed. Ponteland airport’s apparent reluctance to fly anywhere useful didn’t help either. And so, before the journey could really begin, there was another journey to make: Birmingham Airport.
There were passports, clothes and plug adaptors to remember. Zak, unusually by his own admission, even left home on time. His best mate Luke usually gets the blame when they don’t, and even he made it. Yet once everyone was in the car, the extraordinary became ordinary again. It was the same crack as any other away trip: the previous match picked apart, the games ahead considered and the likely line-up debated before anyone responsible for selecting it had asked for their help.
The usual family messages followed. Mine wished Zak a safe trip, along with the obligatory instruction to bring back three points. Our Mam’s were rather more practical: regular reminders to Zak and Luke not to lose their passports and to make sure they actually had their match tickets. Normal Sunderland stuff.
That contrast runs through his account of the trip. This was Sunderland in Europe, the sort of occasion people had waited decades to experience, but it was still recognisably a Sunderland away day. The journey was longer and the surroundings were different. The rituals travelled intact.
There were a few Sunderland shirts on the way towards airport security, but nothing too dramatic. Then came the airport Wetherspoons and, in Zak’s words, a flood of red and white. By the time supporters were walking towards the plane, the chanting had begun and the excitement of what they were about to do was impossible to disguise.
Zak offered an over-or-under of 5.5 seconds between the aircraft’s wheels touching Portuguese ground and the first Sunderland chant. My brother, rarely without an accumulator or bet builder ticking away, had apparently decided even this required a market. The answer, naturally, was under. A football club had been absent from Europe for 53 years; its supporters apparently needed fewer than six seconds to announce their return.
The idea had been that Leiria might carry the feel of a Wembley trip, with Praça Rodrigues Lobo replacing Trafalgar Square. The comparison became increasingly convincing as they approached it. Zak had taken the later bus from Porto, by which time thousands travelling earlier had already allowed the atmosphere to build.
They were dropped near the stadium, where a small bar contained only Sunderland supporters having a relatively quiet drink. Then they began walking towards the square and heard the chanting before they saw where it was coming from. The noise acted as a guide.
Flags covered the square. Red and white filled it and spilled towards the surrounding bars, while some locals wandered through looking completely unaware of what had happened to their city. Add Portuguese sunshine and €2 chicken shop pints and it was little wonder the day felt different, even if the people and the songs made it feel like home.
Those hours before kick-off were spent doing what Sunderland supporters do on away days: drinking, singing, talking about the match and allowing optimism to grow unchecked. When it was time to leave, they moved towards the stadium in a wave of Mackems, carried along by the noise and expectation of more than five thousand people who had travelled to see Sunderland play in Europe.
The performance initially refused to match the occasion. There had been confidence that Sunderland would eventually find a way through a Portuguese second-tier low block, but also the familiar suspicion that they might make life unnecessarily difficult. When Tutierov’s apparent equaliser was disallowed, confusion spread through the away end and through the messages arriving from people watching at home. Our usual family match-day group chat offered little clarity, but no shortage of complaints.
Someone near Zak offered the phrase Sunderland supporters have probably used in every competition, at every level and in every country: ‘It’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it?’ Shortly afterwards, Volnei carried the ball forward and found the top corner from distance. Players, staff, home supporters and away supporters seemed equally surprised. Such a significant day had produced a first-half performance that felt painfully flat. Of course, Torreense’s central defender, hardly known for his goals, chose this moment to score the best one of his career.
The conversations at half-time were unsurprising. Everyone had a view on the substitutions, and everyone was surprised by how poorly Sunderland had played. Le Fée, Xhaka, Mukiele and Reinildo arrived, creativity increased and chances followed, but the afternoon retained the feel of one that might slip away.
Ahoka eventually converted Mukiele’s cross. The celebration was sharp rather than prolonged: relief first, then the immediate recognition that Sunderland had another goal to find. He almost supplied it himself, only for a save and a goal-line clearance to preserve the draw as the clock continued to drain away.
Then came the penalty that wasn’t. Sunderland were awarded one, the decision was overruled for offside and the referee went to the screen. The away end initially cheered, assuming the intervention could only work in Sunderland’s favour. The longer the review took, the less certain that assumption became. Eventually the message appeared: no penalty.
By that point, Zak thought most of the crowd had accepted that the three points they wanted weren’t coming. Sunderland had travelled all that way, taken over the square and carried the occasion into the stadium, only to be frustrated by Torreense and by the familiar feeling that the day wasn’t quite going to deliver what had been imagined for it.
Then a delicate ball found Xhaka, his touch set up Sadiki and the volley hit the net.
The away end erupted. Zak celebrated with two random blokes, as you do, and ended up several seats along from where he’d started as the players sprinted towards the travelling support. Sadiki danced the Fimbu, Xhaka appeared to punch Rigg accidentally amid the celebrations, and one supporter seemed to have Xhaka in a headlock. For a few seconds, thousands of separate journeys to Portugal became one shared release.
There was still time for Torreense to attack from the restart and send a shot into the side netting, provoking another exchange of panicked looks. Then the whistle went. The adrenaline remained, but it was joined by relief: Sunderland had avoided an early slip in their European campaign and the trip had acquired the ending everyone would replay.
That was exactly what happened on the coach back to Porto. The goals were watched over and over again, with commentary breaking out from different seats as phones replayed the same moments at slightly different times. Back at the hotel there was food, followed by a return to St Oliver’s, an Irish bar nearby, where the victory was celebrated over a couple of drinks.
Inevitably, the conversation soon turned to the next trips: Bournemouth, later amended by Zak to simply read ‘pain’ after Sunday’s disappointment, and then Poznan. That might say as much about following Sunderland as anything else. A trip planned for months had delivered a 93rd-minute winner in Europe, and before the night was over attention had already moved to where the club was taking them next.
When I asked Zak what would stay with him longest, he chose the players sprinting towards the away end after Sadiki’s winner and Sunderland under the lights, so far from home. His advice to anyone considering a similar European trip was less romantic but equally valuable: plan as far ahead as possible. It saves money, but more importantly, it allows you to arrive with a clear plan and enjoy everything around the match.
His story is full of things that could only belong to this particular trip: passports and projected pots, Porto buses, Portuguese sunshine, a square filled with Sunderland flags, cheap pints and celebratory chicken. Yet it is also full of things that could belong to almost any away day: leaving with the same mates, debating the team, fearing it might be one of those days, hugging strangers when the winner goes in and replaying the goal all the way home.
Perhaps that is why Sunderland’s return to Europe felt both momentous and strangely familiar. The location changed, the journey stretched across countries and the wait had lasted 53 years, but the instincts remained the same. Sunderland supporters did what they have always done: they found one another, filled the place with red and white and followed the team wherever it was prepared to take them.
It was a European adventure, certainly. It was also just a Sunderland away day, a little further from home.