Pre-Season 08/09
By Andrew Richardson
May 19 2008
Sunderlands full 2008/2009 pre-season schedule
The Black Cats will start pre-season with a 2-game tournament in Portugal competing in the Albufeira Cup.
The Cats start with a game against Sporting Lisbon on Sunday July 20th, 9pm kick off(local time), then take on Vitoria de Setubal on the 23rd. Both games will be played at the Albufeira Municipal Stadium.
Sunderland then travel to Nottingham for a game with Forest which will be Roy Keane's return to the City Ground where he made over 100 appearances for Notts Forest. The game will be on Wednesday July 30th at 7:45pm.
Then onto a rare home friendly against Ajax in early August, the game is to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Sunderland winning the FA Cup.
The team will go back on tour in Ireland for the second year running this time playing 2 games. The first will be at Athlone Town at their brand-new 6,000 all seated stadium on August 7th at 7:30pm. Athlone are in the Irish 2nd division but are the oldest team in the country. Two days later Sunderland play Dublin-based Shamrock Rovers.