The March international break saw teams across Europe fine tuning their preparations for this summer’s Euro 2024.
This month’s fixtures presented managers with one final opportunity to assess their players before they name their squads for the tournament, which starts in Germany on June 14.
An injury-hit England could only manage defeat to Brazil and a draw to Belgium in their two games, but some of their direct rivals for the European Championship crown also suffered a complicated few days of international action.
Let’s take a look at how England’s main rivals fared in their friendly fixtures in the March international break.
France
France endured a shaky international break with a 2-0 home defeat to Germany followed by an unconvincing 3-2 win over Chile.
Kylian Mbappe had a challenging couple of games without the influence of Antoine Griezmann, who was missing his first matches for France for seven years due to injury.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom, however, with the new Les Blues wonderkid Warren Zaïre-Emery impressing against Chile.
The performance against the South Americans could be explained by the nine changes made by Didier Deschamps, which included a rare start for William Saliba, despite the manager insisting the Arsenal defender ‘does things he doesn’t like’.
Germany
Germany had entered the March fixtures in somewhat of a crisis, having suffered defeats to Poland, Colombia, Japan, Turkey and Austria in the second half of last year.
However, their performances this month would have given them an almighty confidence boost, putting on a superb display to beat France in Lyon.
That result was then followed by a 2-1 win over their old rivals the Netherlands, with Niclas Fullkrug’s goal making it a perfect window for Julian Nagelsmann’s side.
There was even a return for Toni Kroos, who has come out of international retirement in a further boost to their hopes on home soil this summer.
Spain
Spain played out a chaotic 3-3 draw with Brazil at the Bernabeu on Tuesday night, which threatened to boil over following the South American’s late equaliser and their subsequent celebrations.
The off-field drama continued with manager Luis de la Fuente incensed that a portion of the crowd had booed Atletico Madrid star Alvaro Morata.
Spain were outstanding in the first half and were in complete control of the game until Unai Simon’s mistake 40 minutes in with the home side 2-0 up.
The dramatics made up for the flat 1-0 defeat to Colombia on Friday night, with Daniel Munoz scoring the only goal of the game at the London Stadium.
Portugal
Portugal had a mixed time of it across their two warm-up games.
Roberto Martinez’s men beat Sweden 5-2 in front of their home crowd before slumping to a surprise 2-0 defeat away to Slovenia.
The former Belgium manager took the unusual step of releasing eight players from the camp after the Sweden game, with five of those players completing the full 90 minutes in Guimarães.
Portugal were the only team to end qualifying with a perfect record, winning all ten of their matches with 36 goals scored and just two conceded in total.
Italy
The defending champions headed to the US for fixtures against Venezuela in Florida and against Ecuador in New Jersey.
Italy registered 2-1 and 2-0 wins respectively, but the level of their South American opponents makes it difficult to truly assess their current standing with less than three months until the big kick-off.
Genoa striker Mateo Retegui scored a brace against Venezuela to cement his status as Luciano Spalletti’s first-choice No 9, although the lack of alternative options in that position is a real concern for the Azzurri.
Belgium
Belgium extended their unbeaten run to 12 games but there was little joy to be taken from their spring work.
Domenico Tedesco’s men laboured in the 0-0 draw to the Republic of Ireland, which might have ended even worse had Evan Ferguson not missed a first half penalty.
The Red Devils were lucky to come away from Wembley with a draw against England, having managed 37% possession and only scoring as a result of two defensive errors by the hosts.
Euro 2024
Kevin De Bruyne is still to come back into the team, but Belgium clearly have work to do if they are to get their hands on their first ever major trophy at Euro 2024.
Netherlands
The Dutch started with a 4-0 win over Scotland in Amsterdam, but in truth, the scoreline flattered the Oranje who saw the visitors dominate large parts of proceedings with the score only creeping up to four with a late flurry of three goals in 18 minutes.
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A better performance was put in against Germany, with the away side looking more settled in their normal 3-5-2 formation having experimented with a 4-3-3 against the Scots.
The Netherlands look dangerous in attack, but will likely need to tidy things up at the back if they are to enjoy a deep run at Euro 2024.
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