England Futsal head coach Peter Sturgess takes his side into the Four Nations Tournament in Newcastle this week, with opposition from USA, Cyprus and Qatar and will be providing a blog throughout the competition.
Travel and meet-up day are always difficult. There is the sense of anticipation that accompanies every international tournament, intermingled with the worries that journeys will be long and arduous with a lack of rest, food and drink.
Four Nations Futsal
England, USA, Qatar, Cyprus
5-8 June 2014
Northumbia University Sport Central
Players and staff will all arrive at different times, but as soon as we have eaten together there will very quickly be a sense of purpose and direction as the focus becomes the preparation for training tomorrow and then the games that follow.
At our recent training camp, the commitment and enthusiasm to train and play hard was as good as I have seen it so there will be an intention to capture the same intensity when we play Cyprus in our first game.
We have played Cyprus a few times and the games are always very close so I expect the same on Thursday. There are no easy games at this level but we have a desire to perform well in front of our home crowd and this will be a huge motivation.
