England vs Spain - as it happened: Visitors hold on for Nations League victory
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Your support makes all the difference.England begin their Uefa Nations League campaign against Spain on Saturday night as Gareth Southgate’s side look to build on the momentum from their World Cup campaign, with the 2020 European Championship already on the horizon.
Southgate is already looking towards that tournament after bringing in new faces to his squad, with Luke Shaw and Alex McCarthy brought into the side, while Jamie Vardy and Gary Cahill have retired from international football and both Adam Lallana and Raheem Sterling have withdrawn due to injury.
The match is the first to take place in Group 4 of the Nations League, with Croatia making up the three-team line-up, but England do not face Croatia until next month. The group stage sees team play each other home and away, with the table-toppers going on to next June’s semi-finals and the nation who finishes bottom relegated to League B.
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What time does it start?
England vs Spain kicks off at 7.45pm on Saturday 8 September.
TV channel?
The match will be shown live on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Football from 7.00pm.
Odds...
England to win: 17/10
Spain to win: 9/5
Draw: 21/10
(Odds provided by Betfair)
Good afternoon and welcome to The Independent's live coverage of today's Uefa Nations League encounter between England and Spain, brought to you from Wembley Stadium.
With kick-off at 7.45pm, we'll begin our pre-match build-up from 6.00pm to bring you all the action and team new the second it's confirmed.
England start their Uefa Nations League campaign tonight against Spain, the hosts will be looking to build on their spectacular performance in the World Cup earlier this year, whilst Spain are seeking redemption after a lacklustre campaign.
A little bit of info on the Uefa Nations League, what it's about and how it works:
- For starters it's a new trophy that will be competed for in the years without a World Cup or a European Championship, so that's 2019, 2021 and 2023 etc.
- There are four leagues A-D, with the highest ranked sides in A and the lowest in D.
- The top four sides in League A compete for the trophy in 2019, whilst the bottom four get dropped into League B.
- The top four teams of Leagues B, C and D all get promoted whilst the bottom four teams of the same Leagues are relegated.
With us so far?
The top and bottom sides are decided by 6 matchdays with each League split into 4 separate groups for example England are in League A and in their group are Spain and Croatia.
England will play Spain and Croatia twice and whoever tops the group goes through to play for the trophy next year.
Whoever comes last in the group goes down to League B and whoever comes second stays in League A.
This is the same for all the other groups in League A, as well as the other Leagues (B-D) but they're playing for promotion/relegation instead of the trophy.
But back to tonight and England have announced the starting XI, Luke Shaw plays for the first time since March 2017 and there's a start for Gomez
England: Pickford, Trippier, Shaw, Maguire, Gomez, Stones, Henderson, Lingard, Alli, Rashford, Kane.
Spain: De Gea, Carvajal, Nacho, Ramos, Alonso, Niguez, Busquets, Alcantara, Isco, Aspas, Rodrigo.
Can this side live up to their World Cup heroics? Gareth Southgate certainly hopes so
A starting place for Jordan Henderson tonight and the Liverpool captain has been in good spirits before the match, take a look below
It feels like ages since the end of the World Cup but tweets like this from Jesse Lingard bring it all back, lets go Harry!
I agree but if he plays in a similar way tonight he could cause some problems for England, especially Luke Shaw on the left
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