Tomorrow evening, a new chapter will be written in Sunderland’s recent history and when we kick off in Portugal against Torrensee, it’ll officially mark a return to continental football for the first time in half a century.
What’s perhaps fitting is that on previous occasion, we were also playing Portuguese opposition in Sporting Lisbon back in 1973. Our hosts on Thursday are a different prospect, and although many of us are unfamiliar with Torrensee, that should take nothing away from the occasion.
The tifo flag which was unfurled ahead of the 1-0 win over AZ Alkmaar in our opening Europa League fixture was brilliant — and this isn’t the first time I’ve written about it. The ship sailing to new shores sums up Sunderland this season, and we’ll be taking ourselves to new places and pitting ourselves against new opponents on at least four occasions.
The Portuguese trip will be unusual for a couple of reasons, these being the fact that the match is effectively at a neutral venue, and that we’re also playing against a second-tier team who are in the competition thanks to a cup win rather than being via league position.
It didn’t matter who this first trip was against — as long as it wasn’t a very boring game against a Scottish team, it was always going to be special.
Thousands of Sunderland fans are setting sail overseas — although most will be flying — with a few driving or getting buses or trains, and I’m very jealous of every single one person that’ll be in in Portugal over the coming days.
Sunderland venture into Europe just as John Lambton joined up to go to the Middle East and fight in the crusades, and we can only hope that when the Lads return to England, they don’t find a huge worm has destroyed everything in its path.
Mind you, Lambton made light work of the worm and so perhaps we can use this as inspiration and put teams on the continent to the sword, using momentum from the Europa League to kickstart our league form. This was a desperate attempt to make a comparison between Sunderland’s European campaign and the most famous piece of folklore!
It’s no secret that we haven’t exactly set the world alight in the league so far this season, and the Brighton loss was really disappointing given just how flat and void of ideas we looked at times.
Yet we’ve won in other competitions and with a congested period of games coming up, we’ll have plenty of opportunities to pick up points in the coming weeks: three in Portugal and then down at Bournemouth would be a great start.
There’s a long, long way to go this season and it’s important to remember our last three defeats have been against the current three best sides in the league. That’s no excuse — it’s just a fact.
Three long away days in seven days will be a test for the squad, especially after a tricky start to the season, but I’m still firmly in the realm of “let’s enjoy every second” because, honestly, is there any other mindset to adopt?