Posted on 15th July 2009
This is a story from the FSF archive – the FSF and SD merged to become the FSA in 2019.
England are due to open their 2009-10 season with a friendly against Holland at the Amsterdam ArenA (that’s not a typo) on Wednesday August 12th 2009. This is the first of two friendlies with the second due to take place at WeMbleY in August 2011.
Free Lions produces a Fans’ Guide for every England away game. See the latest Fans’ Guide which looks at Amsterdam and sign up to our E-Lions newsletter (see left) for all the latest news, exclusive competitions and Free Lions previews.
The Three Lions last faced Holland in a November 2006 friendly half-way through Steve McClaren’s Euro 2008 qualification bid. Wayne Rooney opened the scoring before Rafael van der Vaart hit a late equaliser which saw the game end 1-1. While Free Lions readers need no reminder of how England didn’t do in Euro 2008, the Dutch weren’t particularly happy with how they did do either.
After being drawn in the tournament’s ‘Group of Death’ (has there ever been an international competition without one?) they were soon the bookies favourites following three mightily impressive results against Italy (3-0), France (4-1) and Romania (2-0).
However, they were dumped out in the quarter-finals when Russia’s Andrei Arshavin produced the performance of Euro 2008 to give his country a 3-1 win. Russia’s tournament was ended in the semis by eventual winners Spain.
August’s game will be followed by a home friendly with Slovenia on Saturday September 5th.
With England’s She Believes Cup campaign getting underway shortly, as part of our Free Lionesses service we’ve pulled together some useful links and information for fans who might be making the journey out to the USA to cheer on Phil Neville’s side, who are aiming to retain the trophy they won in 2019.
England are off to Portugal this week as they prepare for the first-ever finals of the new UEFA Nations League – and the Free Lions team will be on hand to help fans once more.
Following England’s defeat to Holland in Portugal last night the Three Lions will be heading back to Guimarães on Sunday to take on Switzerland in the UEFA Nations League.
(Millie Bright, Rachel Daly, Beth Mead, Jill Scott pick up their copy of Free Lionesses.)
