Last season could have been classed as a rare opportunity for the England coaching staff and players to take time to fine-tune and work upon some new areas of their game.
The Three Lions have only played friendly matches over the past 12 months, including the Four Nations Tournament in Newcastle and have focused on preparing for a busy period of competitive games over the next year.
England v Latvia
Futsal International
Friday 7 & Saturday 8 November 2014
St. George's Park, Burton
Last month saw the squad put in two impressive away performances against a physically intimidating Montenegro side ranked nine places above the Lions.
England narrowly lost the first game 5-4 after making a number of careless individual errors to hand the host nation victory, but responded in positive fashion to claim an important 2-1 win in the second match.
And the England camp will take many positives from those two performances as they build up to the European Qualifiers in January, when the squad head to Malta for the Preliminary Qualifying Round.
England have been drawn with Latvia, Andorra and the hosts in what is a challenging but achievable group for England to qualify from. With only the top team gaining automatic qualification to the Main Round, the squad know they have a stern test to face in Malta.
But England will travel into this qualifying tournament having a good knowledge of the three sides that they face as they will have played both Latvia and Andorra in friendly matches over the next couple of months.
That will enable them to gain some valuable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents and prepare for January accordingly. But it will also allow the opponents to do the same.
This puts all three teams in a difficult situation of judging how much to reveal during these friendly matches, whilst also being mindful that victories can be a powerful motivational tool ahead of the Qualifiers.
Latvia, as top seeds, will head into the Qualifiers as favourites with England second favourites and Andorra a close third place (they are ranked one place behind England) and England boss Peter Sturgess is certainly not planning to underestimate the hosts Malta.
"There will be an added motivation for the two teams because the draw for the Euro qualifiers has drawn our two nations in the same group along with hosts, Malta and Andorra," said Sturgess.
Watch highlights of England Futsal in action against USA in the Four Nations Tournament earlier this year
"Our squad is coming off the back of its first ever tournament win following the good performances in July against USA, Qatar and Cyprus, so confidence should be high and we are looking forward to the challenges ahead."
Winning the Four Nations Tournament in Newcastle last June was a good achievement for the squad, but most pleasing was the quality demonstrated during the matches.
England were hugely impressive against USA, Cyprus and Qatar, performing at levels that we’ve never seen from any England Futsal team.
Sturgess is confident that the squad can continue to maintain these high levels and peak at the crucial competition periods and if they manage to do this, England will be a tough team to beat and can hopefully reach the Main Round of the Euros for the second consecutive occasion.
First up is Latvia at St George’s Park a historic occasion for the team and a chance to play on home soil in front of two sell-out crowds.
The Squad
Jordan Parker (Manchester Futsal Club), Ben Mortlock (Sheffield Futsal Club), Agon Rexha (Baku United Futsal Club), Doug Reed (Baku United Futsal Club), James Webb (Loughborough Students Futsal), Ian Parkes (Bristol City Futsal Club), David Jennings (West London Futsal Club), Luke Ballinger (Bristol City Futsal Club), Will Rooke (Loughborough Students Futsal), Richard Ward (Sheffield Futsal Club), George Nash (Bristol City Futsal Club), Jeremy Poulsen (Loughborough Students Futsal), Stuart Cook (Manchester Futsal Club), Toluwa Sotonye (Sheffield Futsal Club).
