Week #7
The Weekly Spurs Report
Future Competitions:
This weekend the SoDak Spurs are hosting the Cubby’s Winter Classic Boys Weekend presented by Brookings HomeTeam. There will be 40 teams in attendance, including 11 Spurs teams. Thank you to our sponsors and volunteers for making this event possible!
Open Registrations:
Registration for Winter JR Spurs, Spring Grassroots, Madison Grassroots, and Dell Rapids Grassroots are all open!
https://www.sodakspurs.com/jr-spurs-winter
https://www.sodakspurs.com/grassroots-spring-2023
https://www.sodakspurs.com/sodak-spurs-madison
https://www.sodakspurs.com/sodak-spurs-dell-rapids
This Week in Soccer:
The Premier League is back this weekened. Notable games are:
Liverpool vs. Chelsea - Saturday, 6:30am on Peacock
Arsenal vs. Manchester United - Sunday, 10:30am on NBC
Sunderland - Written by Jake Weber
Sunderland is an English soccer team in the Northeast of the country. The Black Cats are one of the most historic clubs in England, and also play in the Stadium of Light which has the 9th largest capacity for any soccer stadium in England with a maximum capacity of just under 49,000. They have won the English top division 6 times and lifted the FA Cup twice with their most recent major silverware being their second FA Cup win in 1973. However, despite their history and incredible stadium, if you look at the Black Cats now you would find that they are down in the EFL Championship, which is the second tier of English Football. They haven’t been in the Premier League since 2017.
After the 2017 season, the Black Cats found themselves struggling to get back up to the Premier League. A combination of bad player recruitment, bad coaching, and the sale of Jordan Pickford, a Sunderland youth academy graduate and current England goalkeeper, saw Sunderland get relegated from the second tier to the third tier of England. They had suffered back-to-back relegations and would spend the next 4 seasons in the third tier before finally earning promotion back to the Championship (second tier). Sunderland has gone to a more youthful focus and is looking to get back to the top division while also building for the future with a roster including 22-year-old winger Jack Clarke, 21-year-old midfielder Dan Neil, and 20-year-old Manchester united loanee Amad Diallo.
The main reason I chose Sunderland for the topic of this article is that there is currently a two-season documentary that follows their low period in the late 2010s when they were relegated to the third division. It is currently on Netflix and I would highly recommend it to everyone. The title is “Sunderland ‘Til I Die”.