Leeds United 1-0 Sunderland: Old dogs, new Tarik

The turning point worth taking from this match came after sixteen minutes, when all £34m of central defender Tarik Muharemović collected a short pass from Callum Mills near the edge of his own area and turned, a neat 360, around Trai Hume. 

He zipped a pass to Mills again, further upfield now, who turned infield and passed to Sean Longstaff. He laid the ball off to Muharemović, and first time his left foot urged it onwards to Harry Wilson, just outside the centre circle, who laid off to Mills and darted forward as his teenage teammate switched the play to Jayden Bogle's wing. 

It was the best moment of Muharemović's confident debut and the best example of what was so good about him against Sunderland. There were the interceptions, so many of those that we should get used to hearing plenty about Muharemović intercepting as the season goes by. But the calm passes were what we needed from Muharemović as a replacement for Pascal Struijk, the player who has passed the ball most for Leeds since Daniel Farke took over. And the passes had such quality on them, into Wilson or Dan James between the lines, that they made Leeds attack better. A defender who doesn't only stop goals but makes the team play better in the other direction sounds like a good use of £34m.

The other highlight had already happened, Lukas Nmecha's goal. What happened here? Nobody knows and the post-match interviewer didn't even try to find out, waving a microphone in front of one of the friendliest players in the game and asking, 'Were you pleased to get one on the scoresheet?' "Er, yeah. Yeah," nodded Nmecha, smiling as if trying to coax a proper question into existence. The proper question being, 'What the flipping heck was that?'

Ao Tanaka helped, nicking the ball from Enzo Le Fée as Sunderland passed it around. Nmecha took a touch and, from near the centre circle, did something that made him laugh his head off after the ball daisy-cut through Sunderland's half and penalty area and past their stumbling goalie and inside the post. On LUTV Simon Grayson, who spent a lot of his time as manager trying to interpret the bewildering attacking decisions of Gary McSheffrey, Liam Dickinson, Billy Paynter and so on, reckoned Nmecha had tried a chip and scuffed it. There's an argument, looking at the replays, that Nmecha tried a low shot — and scuffed it. What's inarguable is the fine scuffage Nmecha achieved. No goalie was stopping it.

A lot of what's left to say about this friendly was here, when Le Fée got tackled by Tanaka. Before then, and for what felt like hours afterwards, Sunderland were letting their keeper, Melker Ellborg, stand still with the ball under his boot and wait and watch and listen to the booing of the crowd. It was like a non-aggro rendition of the sport-killing rubbish Sunderland brought to Elland Road back in March. 

Nobody seemed to have told Sunderland that this was an exhibition match designed to build on the popularity of the World Cup in North America. One lesson I'd forlornly hoped would be learned from the tournament was that of the third place play-off — sorry, 'Bronze final' — about how if a game doesn't actually matter then the players might as well have a good time and put on a 6-4 show. We're always told results don't matter in pre-season, so if that's true, why can't we have more ten goal good times?

This particular venture into new markets took Leeds into the belly of their part-owners, Red Bull, and the stadium in New Jersey formerly known as Red Bull Arena, scene of some of Jesse Marsch's greatest days as coach of New York Red Bulls. 

Since 2024 this stadium has been known as 'Sports Illustrated Stadium', and the very red indeed 'Red Bull SI Stadium' branding was everywhere to be seen. It's worth stressing a point about that, though, before you're motivated to seek out any of Sports Illustrated magazine's journalism dating back to 1954. The Sports Illustrated that sponsors the stadium is actually 'Sports Illustrated Tickets', a ticketing platform hoping to rival the likes of Ticketmaster, who have rights to Sports Illustrated's historic intellectual property but don't share any revenue with the actual publication. 

That's because the Sports Illustrated brand is owned by a company called Authentic Brands Group, a conglomerate of private equity investors who own at least 75 'brands', from Barneys New York to Dockers to David Beckham to Marilyn Monroe to Reebok and Care Bears. In the case of Sports Illustrated, they licence the brand to a company that runs the magazine. They also licence the Sports Illustrated brand for use on protein powder, a CBD cream, swimsuits, resorts, and a Super Bowl-weekend 'Sports Illustrated party' featuring Chainsmokers and Ludacris. And Sports Illustrated Tickets, which used to be called Lunatix, until they licensed the name and splashed it around Red Bull's arena, among other places. None of it, bar the name, has anything to do with the 'legacy' brand, once a titan of sports journalism, now just something to stick on some white-label protein powder.

That all feels relevant in the week when Gianni Infantino has been trying to establish a private company to run the World Cup, and other tournaments, on behalf of Fifa. And, incidentally, another brand owned by Authentic Brands Group is 'Elvis Presley', although Sunderland were not wearing their new officially licensed Sunderland x Elvis away kit in this game. ('ELVIS™ and ELVIS PRESLEY™ are trademarks of ABG EPE IP LLC. Rights of Publicity and Persona Rights: Elvis Presley Enterprises, LLC © 2026 ABG EPE IP LLC', as the Sunderland club shop will helpfully remind you.)

Instead Sunderland were giving a runout to their 2026/27 'Triumph of '37' home kit, 'a tribute to Sunderland’s historic 1937 FA Cup Final victory against Preston North End', a win helped by a goal from Raich Carter who was later a promotion winning manager of Leeds United. The kit was and is, of course, red and white stripes with black shorts, like it always is. But the fabric contains a 'subtle pattern' of the 'monogram letter S created using the handles of the cup for that extra level of detail'. So it's definitely worth £65. 

The other heritage brand on display, Leeds United Football Club, were first time wearers of their new strip. Apparently it, 'celebrates 400 years since the signing of the Leeds Town Charter, honouring the city's rich history ... Drawing inspiration from the club's archives', by coming up with a design Leeds have never worn before — horizontal pinstripes — that reference a design — vertical pinstripes — that has historically brought bad times to Leeds. 'The traditional white jersey is completed with white shorts and white socks, creating a clean and timeless look synonymous with Leeds United', the blurb goes on, describing a shirt that it is not traditional — we have no tradition in horizontal pinstripes — and is not clean, timeless or synonymous with Leeds United because it's covered in stripes and Adidas logos and Red Bull logos. 

I mean — I actually quite like how it looks. But sometimes it's worth keeping a beady eye on what we're actually doing, here.

On the pitch, Muharemović aside, Leeds weren't actually doing much. Their contribution to this no-fun friendly was to let Sunderland have their static way with a game that the Black Cats dominated very, very slowly. When Leeds did get the ball, going forward, they looked a little planless, and Harry Wilson was hardly involved. The second half carried on that way, only without Wilson, and Sunderland made and missed the game's best chances. The only life came twenty minutes from the end when Leeds switched to a back four and found some attacking interest, Joel Piroe and Dan James combining several times to no real effect. 

But with a 1-0 lead to defend there were limits to Leeds' needs to attack, and the closing stages were a waiting game: were Sunderland going to ever try to equalise, or...? In a meaningless friendly game there was nothing stopping them throwing the kitchen sink at trying to get a goal other than, apparently, themselves, and the Black Cats weren't up for that particular squabble. Daniel Farke said afterwards that he was very happy with Muharemović in his, "first outing together with his teammates, in such a complicated game," but maybe if that match had been less complicated and more fun everyone would have enjoyed their outing more. ⭑彡

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