1500 Sunderland supporters are heading to the north of France this afternoon to see the Lads take on a Lens side who had one of the most successful seasons in the club’s history during the 2025-26 campaign.
Les Sang et Or — who are managed by former Eintracht Frankfurt boss Dino Toppmöller — won the Coupe de France for the first time in the club’s history back in May, and pushed Paris Saint-Germain more than any other side in Ligue 1 as they finished in a more than respectable second place, qualifying
for the Champions League in the process.
Their season starts next weekend with the Trophée des Champions against PSG and, with that in mind, today’s game probably brings the toughest test Sunderland have faced so far in pre-season.
Quite how Sunderland manager Régis Le Bris is planning to handle splitting his squad across two games today remains to be seen. Despite injuries to Simon Adingra and Omar Alderete, Sunderland can name two full, strong elevens today if they really want to, showing just how competitive our squad is despite only one new face arriving at the club so far this summer.
Unfortunately, it seems that the game this morning is behind closed doors and will not be shown, but Le Bris will likely prioritise fitness over finesse, meaning that playing time will be balanced out based on each individual, and that could well mean that some strong players fans will be eager to see in person may actually feature earlier in the day.
Arthur Masuaku, Granit Xhaka, Chemsdine Talbi and Thomas Meunier were all welcomed to the Academy of Light this week after their extended breaks following their World Cup successes, and based on how Le Bris has gradually stepped up playing time for his players through pre-season, you wouldn’t imagine each man would play much more than 45 minutes today.
But for many of the others, it’s likely we’ll start to see them playing ninety minutes for the first time this summer. With only one other friendly left to play before the real stuff begins against Ipswich Town in the Premier League a fortnight from now, the players must get up to speed and build their readiness ahead of the season’s opener.
Whilst I don’t think there’s really much to be read into when it comes to pre-season starting elevens, the news that Omar Alderete is slightly behind on his fitness makes me think that our first-choice back five is pretty much set for that opener at Portman Road and, as such, we’ll likely see a back five of Roefs, Mukiele, Ballard, O’Nien and Reinildo start the last two games of pre-season together to help build that familiarity we’ll need to get off to as good a start as we can.
The rest of the side, however, is completely up for debate. I suspect that we’ll mix the squads again rather than have one team that is obviously the better of the two, and that’ll purely be based on the lower intensity of the first game being played on a training ground pitch, which should allow us to blood this week’s four returnees back into the fold with minimal fuss.
In terms of what I’d like to see from this performance – other than some more high-tempo football – I reckon the one thing that has been missing in pre-season is a little bit of quality in front of goal. Lots of our build-up play has been tidy, but we haven’t tested the goalkeepers nearly enough, so it’d be great to see us stick more of those good opportunities away and maybe build a bit of confidence for our forwards going into next weekend.
Either way, these games are not definitive and they do not represent a great deal when it comes to how the new season will go, so if we don’t win then don’t lose your minds. Let’s just hope that the 1500 Lads fans in the away end have a cracking trip, enjoy some lovely French beer and see a few goals to send them back to Blighty happy! happy!
