It has been reported recently on the aleague.uslsoccer.com website that there is a good chance that sunderland will be playing in the United states pre-season this summer when they face the Charleston battery side at Blackbaud stadium, Charleston.
However, whilst the Usl soccer website itself seems quite optimistic about the chances of playing the black cats, there seems little doubt they may have decidedly jumped the gun with the early release of the news, their report regarding the pre-season match remains as-of-yet unconfirmed.
As things stand the Charleston battery website currently seems less then enthusiastic about the prospects of the imminent match up, with the date remaining empty on its 2004 calander and little official word on its site.
It could be the case that any early release of information from last week may have already been quickly stemmed.
Despite this, the sunderland afc supporers association usa remains upbeat about the possiblity of a live game on United states soil and any such event will, needless to say, be completely be covered by the supporters branch with support (alongside help with trasportation) available for sunderland supporters who may be travelling from europe and who are unfammiliar with the usa.
“A game, even in such a small stadium as the Blackbaud, will be quite some event.” Said a USA soccer fan yesterday. (The blackbaud has a capacity of 5,113, although its facilities are considered first rate) “if the reports are true there will defnitely be a lot of interested people.”
No doubt there will be a serious demand for tickets should the news be confirmed by Sunderland, who obviously have the final word on the matter. We hope it will.
The usl soccer article is as follows:
“The A-League Charleston Battery will play English First Division side, Sunderland AFC July 17 at Blackbaud Stadium in an international exhibition match; kick off is set for 7:30 PM. This will be the first game the Battery has played against an English Pro Club. Sunderland is currently in third place in the English First Division and is pushing for promotion to the Premiership; three teams are promoted to the Premiership each season.”
“Having a team of Sunderland’s quality preparing for their season will mean that this will be more than an exhibition for them. We hope that at that time we have everybody fit so we can gauge ourselves evenly against them.”
Founded in 1879, Sunderland is one of the most successful sides in English soccer. Sunderland has won eight English Championships and two FA Cup Championships. In 2003 Sunderland advanced to the semifinal stage of the FA Cup before losing to Millwall.
Sunderland is captained by veteran Irish international, Jason McAteer. McAteer has earned 51 caps for the Republic of Ireland including appearances at the 2002 World Cup Finals.
Other key members of the Sunderland squad include Scottish international striker, Kevin Kyle, prolific goal scorer Marcus Stewart, England U21 international Paul Thirlwell and Northern Ireland international defender George McCartney.
Sunderland’s roster also includes the young Argentinean, Julio Arca and the veteran Irish international defender, Phil Babb. Sunderland’s starting goalkeeper is Estonian international Mart Poom; Poom has been capped over 50 times for his country.
Sunderland is led by former Republic of Ireland coach Mick McCarthy. McCarthy led the Republic of Ireland to the 2002 World Cup Finals where they progressed to the round of 16. Ireland did not lose a game during the tournament and was eventually knocked out by Spain in a game decided by a penalty shootout. During McCarthy’s tenure as the Irish coach he took the Republic from a ranking of 54th in the world to 13th.
As a player, McCarthy represented the Republic of Ireland 57 times including captaining them at the 1990 World Cup Finals in Italy. His Club career included spells at Barnsley, Manchester City where he made 272 appearances, Celtic, Olympique Lyon and Millwall.”