Unfortunately I was unable to travel to Amsterdam for the main tour of pre-season due to work commitments, so it was good news all round when we managed to get some late flights to the Algarve to see the lads run around in the sun. As usual too much beer was consumed before, during and after the morning flight, so a lot of our first afternoon was spent getting sun and sleep by our hotel poolside.

Waking up for the evening’s entertainment, I’d like to be able to say I felt fully refreshed and ready to go. However, I could only feel very sore shoulders and an extremely bad head. But needs must and I had not spent all that money to stay in bed. A couple of beers and a few shots later and my head eased, although my drunkenness didn’t. The main strip was heaving (just like last pre season) and the locals were treated to a few renditions of “Hello, hello, we are the Sunderland boys,” but no one else joined in. Was I a lone Mackem in a foreign land? Or did no-one want to be associated with the mortal lad from Roker shouting his head off? Probably the latter…

So to the morning after the night before, and remember how I said I’d not spent all that money to stay in bed? Well that’s exactly what I did on match day. I couldn’t move and was grateful for the few hours recovery before we made our way to the match, which thankfully kicked of at 9pm.

We were told by our previously reliable hotel concierge that a taxi to the region of Portimonense would cost around €30. Well he was wrong, because it was closer to €65. The area where we started drinking was not as lively as Albufeira, but it was early doors so we sampled a few in the token Irish bar, then made our way the short distance to the ground arriving just as SAFC were kicking off. There seemed to be more Sunderland than we thought as we took our seats and mixed in with the Portimonense fans in their black and white shirts (I know).

Surveying the line up it was a little disappointing to see Murphy and Waghorn starting up front after all the talk of us being close to signing an England centre forward. Having said that, Waghorn very nearly broke the deadlock early on, shooting wide from a Malbranque pass. But the hosts seemed to have the better of the play following that and Sunderland were forced to ride their luck on a couple of occasions because of bad mistakes from Nosworthy. A couple of half chances were all we had to show as the sides headed off for the interval.

As expected there were changes at half time with the introduction of Collins, Richardson, Edwards, Reid, Stokes and Healy. This looked more like Sunderland’s strongest available team and it showed in our play, even if the players on show were still a long way off from what everyone is crying out for. There were flashes of nice inter-passing between the fullbacks and the wingers, however very little seemed to be created through the middle. We eventually had the ball in the net, but unfortunately it was ruled out for offside. But It wasn’t long before we could celebrate a goal with Edwards tapping home from close range after the keeper had saved Stokes’ angled shot.

Portimonense very nearly drew level shortly after, with a shot that was pulled wide and then went even closer as their centre forward hit a pearler off the bar with Carson well beaten. They came close once again with our players seemingly clueless what to do with the ball in the opposition half. However, the lads managed to see it out to the final whistle.

It was never going to be a classic and was definitely more of a training exercise than a serious game and it would have been nice to see the new faces as at the minute it feels very much liking watching the last year’s Sunderland. Although to be fair to Bruce he seems to be working hard to get players in. Let’s hope that five more pre-season games will be enough time to get more new players in and allow Bruce to stamp his own identity on the side.

Final Score: 1-0

ALS Man of Match: No one really stood out but I’ll give it to Danny Collins as he seems to be carrying his consistency into the forthcoming season. Also the lad never shut up; shouting, instructing and encouraging his team mates. A future Captain?

Paul Bramley

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