England Confirm Friendlies With Turkey, Australia And Portugal

England will play friendlies against Turkey, Australia and Portugal in the final stages of their preparations for Euro 2016. The Three Lions will take on Turkey at Manchester City's Etihad Stadium on May 22 before playing Australia at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland on May 27 and then wrapping up their warm-up campaign against Portugal at Wembley on June 2.

The confirmation of those games takes the number of pre-tournament fixtures for Roy Hodgson's side to five, with games against Germany, in Berlin on March 26, and the Netherlands, at Wembley on March 29, preceding them. Hodgson said I’m happy that we have been able to secure three challenging opponents that will help us prepare for the tournament. Since the Euro group draw in Paris last December, The FA has worked hard to put together a programme of games around the country and we're looking forward to playing in the north-west and north-east of the country before the final home game at Wembley”.

The Football Association had been in dialogue with UEFA since the Euro 2016 draw and has successfully lobbied the tournament organisers to play more than one qualified opponent from the France 2016 finals in the build-up to the tournament, hence fixtures against Turkey and Portugal. The Turkey game will take place 10 days after the Euro 2016 squad is announced on May 12, but changes can be made to that group as the deadline for confirming the list of 23 selected names is not until May 31.

The England squad will travel to their training base in Chantilly on June 6 and play their opening match of the tournament against Russia in Marseille on June 11.