England to face Nigeria and Costa Rica in 2018 World Cup warm-up friendlies

Tom Doyle10 January 2018

England will host Nigeria and Costa Rica in June in preparation for the 2018 World Cup.

The Three Lions will take on Nigeria at Wembley on June 2 at 5:15pm, and then Costa Rica at Elland Road at 8pm five days later before heading off for the tournament in Russia.

Gareth Southgate's men are in World Cup Group G, along with Tunisia, Panama and Belgium.

England have played twice at Leeds' 37,890-capacity Elland Road - a 2-1 defeat to Italy in March 2002 and a 3-3 draw with Sweden in June 1995.

The ground also staged matches in 1996 when England hosted the European Championship.

Taking home games on the road is something England did in the build-up to Euro 2016, playing games at Sunderland's Stadium of Light and Manchester City's Etihad Stadium.

Southgate's men already have two friendlies scheduled for March, matches against Holland in Amsterdam and Italy at Wembley.

Their World Cup campaign begins against Tunisia in Volgograd on June 18. They then play debutants Panama in Nizhny Novgorod on June 24 before concluding the group stage against Belgium four days later in Kaliningrad.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in