'Unbelievable feeling' - The story of one of Sunderland's greatest goals told by Elliot Embleton himself - and what's next ahead of Championship return

Sunderland are looking forwards now, onwards and upwards to the challenges of the Championship.

It’s a big jump, and this group of players know that in just three weeks many of them will be facing their toughest test yet. There’s little time for looking back, and certainly no time for dwelling on former glory.

But it’s still pre-season, the mood is upbeat and excited and so why not drift back just for a moment or two to that afternoon in the capital?

As Elliot Embleton stands in the tunnel of the Estadio Municipal de Albufeira, cooling down after another intense double session, I’m curious to know, has it sunk in what you did that day?

You ran from your own half, at Wembley, for your club, and rifled it into the back of the net from 25 yards.

I also want to know how many times he thinks he’s loaded that clip up in the days and weeks since, because most of us wouldn’t have been able to do much else.

There’s a laugh and then an honest admission.

“It’s not fully sunk in really, no,” he says.

“It was just an unbelievable feeling, to score for your home club at Wembley.

“It’s a memory forever, that.

“You dream about scoring at Wembley when you’re a young kid, to do it for your home club.

“Honestly, you actually can’t describe the feeling.

“I’d be lying if I said I’d only watched it a couple of times,” he admits.

“I’d say, maybe… a million?! It just seems to get better every time, to be honest, so I think I’ll keep watching it.”

Quite right, too.

Go on then, let’s relive it once more.

To say it escalated quickly would be an understatement. Sunderland had started well but it was a scrappy piece of play that started the move, everything changing when Alex Pritchard was able to turn a loose ball into Embleton’s path.

There’s bits of it that Embleton doesn’t seem quite able to comprehend even now, but watching it back it’s the decisiveness of the first couple of touches that seems to make all the difference. Two players have come to press him but now they’re out of the game, there’s no cover and the defence have to drop, and drop, and drop.

Embleton has never needed an invitation to have a go, and that was never going to change here.

“I just remember Pritch laying it off and being able to take it past the first two [Wycombe players], and that just seemed to open the pitch up,” Embleton recalls.

“You’re not thinking about shooting when you pick it up obviously, but once I got past the halfway line no one seemed to be coming towards me. So I just kept travelling.

“I took it all the way to the edge of the box and then at that point I just thought, this is shooting range, ah I’m going to hit this. If you don’t shoot, you don’t score.

“The next thing you know it’s in the back of the next and the stadium is erupting, 50,000 Sunderland fans.

Embleton’s voice trails off a touch now, remembering the moment that will never leave him: “Unbelievable.”

That was the beauty of the moment, Embleton’s surprise mirrored in the 50,000 rising at his back.

And that glorious wobble, the one that took it from straight at David Stockdale to agonisingly past him just at the very last second.

All deliberate, all just pure calculated technique, I assume? Another laugh: “Well I did hit across the ball, so…

“I got the wobble at the right time, you can’t complain!”

Embleton had not kicked a ball through the semi finals, and Jack Clarke had been so good in the second leg at Hillsborough that his selection at Wembley seemed likely.

To switch them up was classic Alex Neil, the last game irrelevant against what was up next.

Even if it wasn’t always rewarded with a start, Neil turned to Embleton almost every game. So often, it was rewarded with a late goal or assist.

What might have felt like a snub turned out not really to be like that at all.

So when the call came for Wembley, Embleton was ready.

“The manager picks his teams for every game and it was gutting not to be involved in the semi finals, but it’s about winning at the end of the day,” he says.

“He tends to pick his team on what the game needs, and what tactic he thinks we need.

“If you don’t play one game, then it means you might well be in the next one.

“And even the one you don’t play in, there’s every chance you’ll come and you can get an assist or a goal, make that contribution.

“To pick me in the final, I wanted to repay that.”

When Embleton was younger it was probably an FA Cup final he dreamed of scoring a goal like this in.

It’s not lost on him, though, that this day, that goal, could in years to come be seen as something of a turning point. That hauling the club out of League One can make so much possible.

All that is for another day, though.

Embleton is ambitious and is only scratching the surface of his potential and what he achieves in the game.

Now it’s about proving himself in the Championship, kicking on again.

One chapter of history has been written, but there’s a lot more to do yet.

“I was just buzzing we managed to win, to get us out of the league and to get us looking up as a club,” he says.

“The goal was unbelievable, but it was the win that just made it really.To help get us promoted after too many years in League One... hopefully we’re on the up now and we can go and put in some good performances in the Championship.

“We’d obviously been through that period of being in League One. No club just deserves to be promoted but the team and the gaffer put the hard work in, and we got the rewards of that.

“It’s going to be a very different challenge now, but we feel as though we can do well there.

“We’ve got a togetherness from last year, we had really good moments together as a group,” he adds.

“We played some good football at times last year as well, so it’s about building on that, improving on that again and if we can do that, I’m sure it’ll be fine.

“Every player wants to play against better teams, in the bigger games.

“It’s going to be a challenge but I’m looking forward to it, I feel confident we can all put in some good performances.”

The Sunderland Echo's coverage of SAFC in Portugal is brought to you in association with Flex Joinery. Visit www.flexjoinery.co.uk for further details.

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