Who knew such creativity could be found so close to home?
It’s now getting to the point in the season where a lot of managers have given up on their FPL. To be honest, we can’t really blame them. From that random Calvert-Lewin 7-9-6-9-13-8 point run to Bruno Fernandes’ untimely injury in December, it’s proven year after year that one player can significantly set you back.
However, in true Sunderland style, we’re not ones to give up, and the Sunderland FPL league is still highly competitive. I decided
to spend my Sunday morning analysing how I could advance over the next few weeks, but didn’t exactly expect to be laughing out loud at some of the team names.
In honour of the very creative Mackems who have blessed my eyes with their punny team names, I decided to look through the top 500 teams in the Sunderland FPL league and share them with the world.
Granit Xhaka
We’ll start off strong with my personal favourite name in the whole of the league: ‘Xhaka Whites Market’. In an incredible reference to the long-standing ‘Jacky Whites Market’ in the Bridges, which has been the heart of shopping in Sunderland city centre since 1965, this team name is a perfect combination of an inside joke and football reference.
Our captain has also leant his name to possibly the most common team name in the Sunderland league with ‘Boom Xhaka Laka’. Ranked in The Scotsman’s 50 Best Fantasy Football 2025 team names, this name never fails to bring a smile to my face when I read it.
Luke O’Nien
You can’t exactly have a Sunderland squad without Mr Sunderland, can you? There were a couple of entrants into the top 500 with the name ‘Sweet Child O’Nien’, in a very humorous reference to the iconic 1988 Guns N’s Roses song ‘Sweet Child O’Mine’.
In a more tenuous, but also very funny, reference to the club captain, another team in the league is named ‘O’Nien Bhaji’. I’m not too sure how much you can argue that O’Nien sounds similar to onion, but the thought was there, it made me hungry, and it certainly deserves some recognition in this list.
Eliezer Mayenda
Oi, Big Man, what’s your team name? Many teams in the league did take inspiration from our number 12 this season. ‘Mayenda v De Fender’ did elicit a chuckle out of me, but mainly because of the thought that Sam Fender could also be swapped out to Defender in his chant.
In the same way that Xhaka Whites Market steals my heart as an if-you-know-you-know type of reference, the team name ‘TIL THE mayENDa’ brings our 2024/25 Championship Playoff motto ‘Til the End’ in collaboration with Eliezer himself. Very creative, very Mackem, very funny.
Le Fée
It appears that quite a few Mackems managed to smell the blood of a Frenchman when coming up with their team names at the start of the season, as there are quite a few titled ‘Le Fée Fi Fo Fum’. Aptly, they were quite suited to the fairytale start to the season that the Black Cats had, so maybe we have these managers to thank? However, some other managers seemed to be a little less optimistic, opting for a more ‘it is what it is’ perspective to the season by adopting ‘that’s life’ as their team name, in the form of ‘C’est Le Fée’. Great play on words.
Others
Some final honourable mentions that also belong in this article focus on players old and new. From ‘Gettin Riggy With It’, to ‘Talbi Tubbies’, to a team even named in memoriam: ‘Patrick Roberts RIP’. The latter made me chuckle because of how to the point – and true – it is. There was even an Oasis reference in the team ‘Sunderwall’, maybe because today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna pass it back to Roefs? Sorry, I shouldn’t have started ‘Taking Le Bris’ at the last second there.
