Norwich City welcome Dutch side NAC Breda to Carrow Road for a genuine Championship dress rehearsal, just a week before the shredded nerves and seemingly win or die stakes of an opening day meeting with Millwall at the same venue.
After months of experimentation, game time juggling, peculiar double-headers and the management of an ever-changing squad, this gives new head coach Liam Manning a chance to assess exactly where things are before his push for Premier League promotion kicks off in earnest. For the most part this is the squad he’ll have to play with on that day, and that certainly couldn’t be said for a behind-closed-doors first test against Northampton that now feels like the distant past.
Another stark contrast to that sterile 3-1 win is the fact that fans are present – the large majority for the first time since a sour season ended on a sweet note at Cardiff City’s expense. It won’t be the fevered atmosphere of opening day, but there will be thousands of Norwich fans in NR1 rather than the tens that made the trip out to the Netherlands.
Many of them may have purchased passes that allowed them to watch those games via live stream, but there’s nothing quite like digging into the detail of a fresh regime in person.
City fans get the chance to see their team at Carrow Road for the first time in three months today (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)
The away fans will only add to that excitement, with around 1,500 expected to make the same trip their opposition did just a week ago. Journalist Jurre van Wanrooij described it as a “once in a lifetime” clash for Breda, and ticket uptake from the other Yellow Army has only reinforced that.
The game also means a reunion that striker Sydney van Hooijdonk probably felt unlikely until news broke of the friendly, after a difficult loan spell that included no starts, no goals and little impact otherwise in 2024. He’s still looking forward to it, however, reflecting on the “sweet and helpful” people of the city in the lead-up.
His struggles as a Canary perhaps lend an insight into the quality of opposition his former side faces, but it won’t be a pushover. Breda will play again in the Eredivisie next season, competing with the likes of Ajax and PSV after avoiding relegation with a seven-point cushion last term.
For reference, City’s best side – including Josh Sargent, Harry Darling and a host of other key players – could only draw with ADO Den Haag last Friday, and the Stalks play a division below NAC.
The Canaries will be reunited with loan flop Sydney van Hooijdonk (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)
But that doesn’t mean that Manning won’t be expecting a win from his charges to send them into the season with some momentum. Largely irrelevant as results are at this bizarro time in the football calendar, there’s no doubting the confidence a victory would bring at the same stadium as next week’s big clash, with almost the same players and likely the same system.
“The habit of winning” has become a familiar refrain for Manning this summer, and that’ll be no different when he addresses his team for the first time in the Carrow Road dressing room.
Part of that team will be new faces for whom this is a vital opportunity to bed in, Johannes Hoff Thorup’s disorderly start to Championship life evidence of the alternative. Jeffrey Schlupp and Papa Amadou Diallo are likely to feature for the first time, and there is hope that Mathias Kvistgaarden could too.
Those debuts are often the highlights of the customary Carrow Road send off, and any foreshadowing signs from the aforementioned trio will be more than welcome.
Add all of these elements together and they make for more than the average pre-season fitness exercise. What follows is unknown, the path to promotion unpredictable and thorny, but one thing’s for sure: the banality is over for another year.