Roy Hodgson says England’s upcoming games in Manchester and Sunderland will be a good opportunity to take their football to a new audience.
The Three Lions face Turkey at the home of Manchester City tomorrow before taking on Australia at the Stadium of Light next Friday.
England v Turkey
5.15pm, Sunday 22 May
Manchester City Stadium
Live on ITV
And Hodgson says the games – which are followed by a clash with Portugal at Wembley Stadium connected by EE on 2 June – are an exciting prospect.
He said: “We feel we've got good support in the country and we feel that the people are behind us and wishing us well.
“It’s nice that we can play some of the preparation games around the country and show off our football and the players to some big football fans who don't always get the chance to see games at Wembley.
“I think that we will have shown at least our intentions and our goodwill of bringing England football to the whole of England and not just cocooning it at Wembley, where maybe only the people in the London area get a true chance to see us play live.
“I'm very grateful that The FA accepted that idea and promoted it, and I think it's going to be a really interesting occasion playing in Manchester and Sunderland before the final game at Wembley.”
Hodgson added that he expects the pre-tournament triple-header to provide his players with a real test ahead of EURO 2016 – something he welcomes.
“All of us will want to go out and beat Turkey, beat Australia and beat Portugal,” he said, “but I will make one point: if we'd been 100% focused on getting three results so that we could go there being able to boast that we'd won our three preparation games then I don't know if we'd have chosen Turkey, Australia and Portugal as opponents.
“We've certainly made life difficult for ourselves but we've done that with a purpose. We've made life difficult for ourselves early because we know that when we get to France every game that we play there will be a very difficult one to win.
“We've started as we mean to continue with a tough game against Turkey, and our aim will be to win and win it playing the type of football that we think will serve us well during the tournament.”
Tickets for all three of England’s pre-EURO 2016 friendlies are still available from TheFA.com/Tickets, priced from £25 for adults and £15 for children.
England's players gear up to face Turkey
