9/6/23
Above: Chloe Kelly will be hoping to have more to celebrate for England in their friendly against Portugal – their final game at home before travelling to the World Cup.
England’s final fixture on home soil before the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup will be a send-off match against Portugal on Saturday 1st July at Stadium MK.
The match, which kicks off at 3:15pm, and will be live on ITV1, sees The Lionesses welcome their fellow World Cup qualifiers to Milton Keynes four days before England head to Australia.
The meeting with Portugal will feature the squad that was announced by head coach Sarina Wiegman last Wednesday to represent England at the tournament.
Speaking about the announcement of the friendly, Wiegman said: “I am really pleased to have a competitive game for our last home fixture. We had two big games in April against Brazil and Australia where we learned so much. This will be another challenging match against a team that have performed well and are going to their first World Cup.
“Portugal will also want to show they can be a threat to teams in Australia, and they have very technical players with good ability. For us, it will be important to come together again as a team after the end of the club season and feel the support of our fans.
“We will do our best to give them a good performance. It will only be three weeks until our opening World Cup game so it will be such an important moment in our preparation.”
Tickets will go on sale to England Football members today and on general sale from midday on Monday 12 June. Tickets are available from https://www.tickets.com/.
England last played at Stadium MK in the Arnold Clark Cup this February, winning 4-0 against Korea Republic.
Portugal were the hosts when the teams last played each other on 8 October 2019 in Setubal, when Beth Mead struck the only goal of the game for the visitors. England also met Portugal in the EURO 2017 group stage in Tilburg, Netherlands – winning 2-1 thanks to Toni Duggan and Nikita Parris.
The last meeting in England was more than 21 years ago in a 2003 World Cup qualifier on 24th February 2002, when England won 3-0 in Portsmouth after a Kelly Smith double followed Fara Williams’ first international goal on her full debut.
Before the World Cup begins, England will take on Canada in a behind-closed-doors match on 14 July. In the finals, the Lionesses have been drawn in Group D and will take on Haiti (22nd July, Brisbane), Denmark (28th July, Sydney), and PR China (1st August, Adelaide). Portugal are in Group E and meet the Netherlands (23rd July, Dunedin), Vietnam (27th July, Hamilton), and the United States (1st August, Auckland).
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