Turkey and England start the warm-up to their Euro 2016 campaigns with a friendly match at Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium on Sunday 22 May. The game kicks off at 5.15pm UK time with coverage starting at 4.30pm on ITV.
Both Roy Hodgson and Fatih Terim will be using the friendly international to experiment with players in the run-up to the Euro finals, which start next month.
England will be without Liverpool and Manchester United players, as both clubs were in action these past few days respectively playing in the finals of the UEFA Europa Cup and FA Cup. Dele Alli, Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy however are all expected to feature.
Terim has named a 31-man provisional squad ahead of the tournament. Their star players, Barcelona’s Arda Turan and Beijing Guoan’s Burak Yılmaz, need to be on form if Turkey is to progress from a tricky group, which contains Croatia, Czech Republic, and reigning European champions Spain.
Unfortunately for Turkish fans, Turan won’t be in Manchester on Sunday as his team Barcelona play Sevilla in the Spanish Copa del Rey on the same day.
The likely starting line-ups are:
- England XI: Forster; Walker, Stones, Cahill, Bertrand; Dier, Wilshere; Townsend, Alli; Kane, Vardy.
- Turkey XI: Babacan; Gönül, Kaya, Aziz, Köybaşı; Topal, Özyakup, Çalhanoğlu, Şen, Potuk, Tosun.
The two teams have met on ten previous occasions. Of these, England have won eight, with two matches drawn. However, Turkey are more in-form, winning five and drawing one of their last six games, while England, who qualified top of their group by winning all ten games, have won four and lost two.
The match will be officiated by Deniz Aytekin, a German referee of Turkish heritage.
