7/30/2026

Leeds United vs. Sunderland @ Sports Illustrated Stadium (Harrison, NJ)

My first REAL taste of English football

As a quick aside, I've added the "related posts" thing on the side there (or at the bottom if you're on a narrower screen). It's something I've been meaning to do for a while, as it adds some interconnectivity between posts, but I'm currently undecided on how "deep" I want to go with this connectivity (as it's A LOT OF WORK).

I'm not going to go into the history of the Premier League (as it's a bit convoluted since it involves television rights), but for those who don't know, it's easily one of the most watched association football (or "soccer") leagues in the world (if not the singular most watched league). I'm also not going to get into the histories of either team here (as BOTH are over 100 years old), but I do want to talk about last season as it provides SOME context.

For those who aren't familiar with European soccer leagues, most of them operate on a promotion/relegation system. In this system, just about every soccer club in the country is part of a MASSIVE organization with many levels, and teams move up or down those levels based on how well/poorly they do. The Premier League, as one might expect, is the top of this system in England, but in recent years has seemingly become "too good": in both 2022-23 and 2023-24, the teams that were promoted to the division were all immediately relegated back to the second division. This sparked fears of the league becoming "stale", with even the league's lower tier members (such as Tottenham Hotspur for whatever reason) being too good for the rest of the country, and promoted teams simply there to fill out the numbers for a season before being replaced.

Both Sunderland and Leeds United were newly promoted to this division in 2025, and going into 2025-26, both were expected to be relegated (Sunderland moreso than Leeds, as they were viewed as WAY BEHIND the other promoted teams in terms of quality). However, both teams exceeded expectations - not only surviving to see another season in the Premier League, but THRIVING: Leeds finished eight points clear of being relegated, while Sunderland earned a spot in international competition with a seventh place finish (again, not super important for this post sadly).

This contest is part of a preseason tour organized by a third party company¹, which does mean that this isn't exactly a "competitive match", but hey...how often do we get to see the "non-big" European clubs in the States? In addition, Leeds has the United States Men's National (Soccer) Team's Brenden Aaronson (AND he's from New Jersey), so that SHOULD be another incentive any for newly minted soccer fans to come and check it out!²

Tickets for this game were on the "maybe this isn't the best of uses of money" side a few weeks before this game; I recall seeing it being $49 for upper deck endzone seats (not the WORST price in the world, but maybe not so great for a friendly involving "lower tier" English clubs). However, a week and a half prior to the game, I saw that they had stopped selling upper deck seats entire and were selling the lower decks only (with endzone seats somehow still being $49), but I ended up getting THESE tickets for me and three friends for a somewhat shocking price (which I can safely say is NOT $49):

As a "friendly", this game is a bit hard to "judge", as both teams are really just trying to see which youngsters might be good pieces for their squads while also trying to avoid getting their main guys injured (as losing key players can hurt BAD when your rank in the standings matters). In the end, Leeds won 1-0 on a SUPER flukey goal - but they didn't have Aaronson on their roster, so...

Also, I realize that this is MODERATELY unimportant overall, but it felt like there were more Leeds fans than Sunderland fans (though neither club had enough fans to create a real "English" feel - but the fans did try though). I have NO CLUE which team was the "designated" home team, but given that MOST stuff I saw for this game had Leeds listed first, I'd assume THEY were technically the home team (plus they attacked the stadium's traditional supporters' section in the second half - which teams typically do at home).

MERCH

Both teams took the opportunity of being close to New York to host events for their 2026 home shirts in the city - both of which were unveiled in the days before this game. Sunderland gave fans a special opportunity to purchase their new home shirt around the corner from Classic Football Shirts (where, coincidentally, I bought an old Sunderland shirt last year), but I couldn't make it partially due to the amount of work it takes to go to New York City along with a prior commitment (plus they sold out, so...). Leeds, on the other hand, had their reveal event at a retail store in Times Square, but I cannot figure out if their home shirt was available for sale at their event (as I only found out about it about 20 hours before this game).

At THIS match, both of the newly revealed home shirts (which both teams wore for the first time during the match) were available, along with away shirts for both teams that were revealed a while ago³ and a few other items. Leeds had stuff related to their U.S. tour, but Sunderland had more "general" items: training wear, hats, and scarves. I DID have some thoughts about getting a Sunderland scarf, but it was SUPER basic and had SEVERAL design "faux pas(es?)", so I ended up skipping it.