England have been drawn in Group E which will take place in Malta between the 13 and 17 January next year. As well as the Maltese hosts, England will face Andorra and Latvia in what should be a hotly contested group.
With the top team progressing automatically through to the Main Round, and the best runner-up across the six qualifying groups also getting through, this should be a competitive and compelling group.
Sturgess and his squad have an intriguing draw in the Euros
According to the rankings Latvia, who are 54th in the world, will be group favourites with England ranked at 70th closely followed by Andorra at 71st place and Malta at 98th place in the rankings.
However, rankings don’t always directly correlate to performance in pressured situations like this, particularly as Latvia have not played a competitive international in 2014.
England will be familiar with the conditions and environment that they will be playing in, having travelled to play in a tournament in Malta in 2013.
But by the time this qualifying group takes place in January, the England team will also be very familiar with arguably their two biggest rivals in this group: Latvia and Andorra.
England host Latvia in a double-header friendly fixture on the 7 and 8 November at St Georges Park. This was geared at preparing the England team ahead of the Euro qualifiers, but now these two fixtures take on an entirely new and intriguing proposition for both nations.
To compound this scenario, the final friendly match England have in their calendar to prepare for the Euros is an away fixture with Andorra on the 14th and 15th December.
This gives England’s Head Coach Pete Sturgess a real headache. How much of England’s game plan does he reveal in both of these friendlies, and does he hold back certain tactics so that England can surprise their opponents in January?
And on the flip-side none of the teams will want to suffer a heavy defeat due to the psychological damages and advantages that this can inflict.
The positive for Sturgess and the England squad is that it potentially enables them to get a close look at their rivals at first-hand and to identify a game-plan for the Euros.
England have a good track record against teams that they know and have experience of playing against; so the hope is that these friendly fixtures will play into the hands of England more than their opponents.
Whatever the situation the next couple months should be interesting both on and off the court as these teams prepare for battle in January.
To come and watch the first step of this fascinating scenario you can book tickets for the England vs Latvia at St Georges Park by clicking here.
