On Friday, we discovered Sunderland’s eight opponents in this season’s Europa League league stage. AZ Alkmaar, Dinamo Zagreb, Jagiellonia Bialystok and Levski Sofia will all be welcomed to the Stadium of Light in the coming months, while Sunderland fans will be visiting AC Milan, Anderlecht, Lech Poznan and SCU Torreense to watch the lads.
Ahead of our campaign kicking off, I had a look at which players have played for both Sunderland and our Europa League opponents. In doing so, I found a total of eight
players across five of these clubs.
Anderlecht: Sadiki & Angulo
Firstly, two of Sunderland’s current squad have played for Belgian side Anderlecht.
The first is Noah Sadiki, who joined Anderlecht at the age of six and progressed all the way to the first team. He made his debut in 2022 under manager Vincent Kompany and made a further 18 appearances for the Brussels-based team. This includes three appearances in the UEFA Conference League.
He moved from Anderlecht to fellow Brussels side Union SG in 2023 where he made an impressive 108 appearances over just two seasons, including ten Europa League appearances in the 2024-25 season. He also won the Belgian league, cup and Super Cup in that time.
From there, Sadiki completed his move to Sunderland last summer and was a standout performer despite his young age. He played 33 times in last season’s Premier League and has also played in the Africa Cup of Nations and the World Cup.
Secondly, Nilson Angulo was signed by Sunderland this January from Anderlecht.
After starting his career in his native Ecuador, Angulo moved to Anderlecht aged 18. He spent four seasons in Brussels and became one of the best wingers in the Belgian league before moving to Sunderland.
Angulo played a total of 94 times for Anderlecht, scoring ten goals and contributing 11 assists. He has also made six Europa League appearances and four Conference League appearances, and even scored a goal in the Europa League away to Slavia Prague.
AC Milan: Borini and Muntari
There are two players who have played for both Sunderland and AC Milan: Fabio Borini and Sulley Muntari.
Borini played a total of 93 games for Sunderland across two spells on Wearside. His first was a successful loan spell in the 2013-14 season in which he scored some crucial goals in the ‘great escape’ under Gus Poyet. The Italian was named Sunderland’s young player of the year and netted a total of ten times across this season, including both home and away against Newcastle and the opening goal of the Capital One Cup final against Manchester City.
After rejoining the club in 2015, Borini would go on to play for Sunderland for another two seasons. The club’s relegation to the Championship in 2017 saw him join Milan on loan, where he would eventually sign permanently and make 75 appearances in total.
Ghanaian international Sulley Muntari spent most of his career in Italy and played for both Milan clubs. In January 2011, he joined Sunderland on loan from Inter Milan until the end of the season. All of his nine appearances came in the Premier League after his debut in a 3-2 away defeat to Stoke.
Muntari’s stay in Sunderland was not made permanent, and the following season he joined AC Milan, again on loan from Inter. Following the expiration of his contract at Inter, he signed with AC Milan on a free transfer and played 83 times for them, scoring 13 goals in that time.
During his time at Inter, he won the Champions League, Serie A twice and the Italian Cup twice, as well as the Club World Cup in 2011. However, AC Milan failed to reach the same heights during his time there.
AZ Alkmaar: Altidore and Lens
Two players have also played for both Sunderland and AZ Alkmaar, in the form of Jozy Altidore and Jeremain Lens.
Altidore was signed by Sunderland under Paolo di Canio from AZ in the summer of 2013, in the same window as Borini. He had played in the Premier League for Hull a couple of seasons earlier, and his goalscoring record in the Netherlands was impressive, netting 50 goals and registering 11 assists in 93 appearances.
The American’s career at Sunderland never really took off, and in 53 appearances, the striker only managed three goals. However, he played a crucial role in setting up Fabio Borini’s late winner against Newcastle at the Stadium of Light in his first season. Altidore also boasts an impressive international record with 42 goals in 115 appearances for his country.
He eventually left Sunderland in January 2015 in a swap deal that worked out very well for both parties, as Altidore returned to the USA in return for Jermain Defoe from Toronto.
Altidore was part of the AZ team that won the Dutch Cup in 2013 against PSV Eindhoven, and lining up for PSV that day was Jeremain Lens.
Former Dutch international Jeremain Lens started his professional career with AZ Alkmaar. His debut came as an 18-year-old in 2006, and he went on to play for AZ 75 times, scoring 18 goals. He also became an Eredivisie winner for AZ under Louis van Gaal in 2009.
Lens joined PSV and then Dynamo Kyiv before signing for Sunderland in July 2015. He was signed by Dick Advocaat, who had previously managed Lens in the first of his two stints as AZ manager.
His most memorable moment(s) in a Sunderland shirt came in a 2-2 draw against West Ham, in which Lens scored an impressive chip. However, he was sent off later in the game after receiving two yellow cards, and Sunderland squandered their two-goal advantage. This also proved to be Advocaat’s final game in charge of Sunderland.
Lens spent two seasons in Turkey on loan from Sunderland before making the move permanent in 2018. He played 24 games for Sunderland and scored four goals in that time.
Levski Sofia: Gomez
Former Barcelona man Jordi Gomez is the only player to have played for both Sunderland and Bulgarian side Levski Sofia.
Gomez signed for Sunderland on a free transfer in the summer of 2014 following the expiration of his contract at Wigan. His first goal came in a League Cup tie against Birmingham, and he scored another five goals in 39 appearances for Sunderland across a season and a half.
The Spaniard joined Blackburn on loan in January 2016 before returning to Wigan permanently in August that year.
After a short spell in Spain, Gomez spent a season in the Bulgarian capital, playing 45 times and scoring five goals. He started the Bulgarian Cup final in 2018; however, he missed a penalty in the early stages of the game and was substituted just before full time. The game finished goalless, and Levski were eventually beaten on penalties by Slavia Sofia.
He then moved to Cyprus, where he retired.
Jagiellonia Białystok: Stryjek
Warsaw-born goalkeeper and former Poland youth international Max Stryjek joined Sunderland as a youngster in 2013.
He never made a senior appearance in an official match for Sunderland but spent time on loan at Boston United, Accrington Stanley and Eastleigh from the club, before joining Eastleigh permanently in 2019.
Stryjek played for Livingston, Wycombe and Crewe Alexandra before joining Jagiellonia ahead of the 2024-25 season. They had won the Polish league title in the previous season, and Stryjek’s first team debut came in a Europa League qualifying match away to Ajax in August 2024.
The match ended in a 3-0 win for Ajax, and Brian Brobbey scored the final goal. Bertrand Traore and Jordan Henderson started for Ajax that day.
Stryjek returned to Scotland to play for Kilmarnock last season after five appearances in Poland.
Dinamo Zagreb, SCU Torreense and Lech Poznan
A year after an unsuccessful trial with Sunderland in 2012, Gambian midfielder Alieu Darbo signed for Dinamo Zagreb and was included in their Europa League squad.
However, as far as I could tell, there has never been a player to play for Sunderland and the rest of our Europa League opponents.
This season’s continental campaign will without a doubt add to the connections between these teams, and we could end up facing some more former Black Cats as we hopefully progress through the competition, including Elizier Mayenda at Stade Rennais and Remi Matthews at Crystal Palace.
