SUNDERLAND, England — Just outside the dressing rooms at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, the walls are decorated with outsize portraits of the club’s players. They are pictured with arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

Each image, as well as an inspiring slogan urging them to “fire the city,” is superimposed on a backdrop of coal. The iconography has not yet had the desired effect; this season’s Sunderland team runs the risk of becoming the worst side the Premier League has ever seen. The message, though, is clear: This is who you are, and this is where we came from.

Amid the Premier League’s global glamour, the bond between a team and its home can be easily broken. As clubs have become ever more internationalist, seeking out new markets on new horizons, a sense of dislocation has grown. They exist in a place, but they are not necessarily of it.

That is not true of Sunderland. It is not a relic, but it is certainly a reminder of what teams used to represent, a time when a club was a cornerstone of a community.