Brazil 2014: England fly to Miami in ‘Positive Mood’

From comfortably beating Peru 3-0 on Friday night, the England players departed from Luton Airport bound for Miami. The squad consisted of the 23 named players plus the standby players of John Stones and Jon Flanagan.

During their 1 week stay in Florida Roy Hodgson’s side will play 2 friendly games, against Ecuador and Honduras at the Sunlife Stadium. The game against Ecuador will take place on Wednesday 4th June (kick off at 8pm BST), and the game against Honduras on Saturday 7th June (kick off 9.45pm BST). Both games will be shown on ITV.

Speaking from Luton Airport, England boss Hodgson said:-

It is going to be a great adventure. We are really excited about it, and we got the perfect send off on Friday where the crowd was magnificent.

We fly off in a very positive mood. We know we carry a lot of hopes and dreams with us and we are excited about our responsibilities.

England will, next Sunday, head for Brazil as this World Cup kicks off. Roy Hodgson was rightly wary of what friendly games can bring:-

We certainly don’t want any injuries – when you see what happened [when Italy played Republic of Ireland] at Craven Cottage last night and seeing Riccardo Montolivo injured.

Above all it’s a chance to get everyone on the field of play and get some minutes under their belt before we go to the tournament.