England v Greece
International Friendlies
7pm Monday 17 December 2007 & 7pm Tuesday 18 December 2007 
Nechells Sports Centre, Birmingham.

England return to home turf early next week, as the Futsal squad take on Greece in Birmingham in two international friendly games ahead of two big tournaments in 2008.

With the Kuala Lumpur Fives competition taking place in late January and then being swiftly followed by a trip to Budapest for the World Cup qualifying games with Hungary, Poland and Macedonia in February, Graeme Dell’s side will be hoping these fixtures can give them a confidence boost going into 2008.

The most recent games saw England unfortunate to come away from Georgia on the back of two narrow defeats in Tbilisi and back in October, there was an improvement over the two matches with Andorra in Bath.

With that first win proving elusive so far, hopes are high that there will be an upturn in fortunes in front of a home crowd at the Nechells Sports Centre.

For Birmingham boy Jon Adams, that would be a dream come true and given the recent performances and influx of young players in the squad, he feels things are constantly on the up.

“We are definitely improving all the time, definitely over the last couple of months,” revealed Adams, ahead of the games with Greece.

“The more and more we play and train together, the better we’ll become and we have high hopes that we can get the win sooner rather than later.

“Belief is the key though, we need to believe in ourselves, in each other and in what we’re trying to do.

“There are games in which we have come so close to getting a win and our performances of late have been better so it’s just a matter of playing well and seeing it through.”

The 22-year-old normally plies his trade with AFC Telford United in the Conference North away from Futsal and being based in such close proximity to home, he is hoping to see a sizeable crowd and a few familiar faces inside the arena.

“It’s something that I’ve always dreamed of, playing for England in my hometown and I hope there will be a good crowd here for the games,” added the former Rushden and Diamonds and Chesterfield player.

“I’ll hopefully have plenty of friends and family here too, so they can see what it’s all about as well.

“The crowd was brilliant in Bath last time, so if it can be something similar in Birmingham, that would be great.”