England announce game at an English stadium they haven’t played at for 84 years

As Thomas Tuchel’s first match as England manager approaches, the men’s national team is set to play at a stadium where they haven’t played for more than eight decades.

England have played many matches away from Wembley for various reasons over the years and have taken international football to the likes of Old Trafford, Villa Park, St James’ Park, the Stadium of Light, St Mary’s and Molineux.

But they haven’t played at the City Ground, the home of Nottingham Forest, since a wartime international friendly against Wales in 1941.

Thomas Tuchel is taking England back to the City Ground

Wembley will be busy with its musical extracurriculars over the summer of 2025 and the FA has reportedly selected the City Ground as its choice of stadium for an end-of-season friendly against Senegal on the evening of Tuesday 10th June.

It will be Tuchel’s fourth game as England manager and is scheduled after the national team’s first three World Cup qualifiers. England play at home against Albania and Latvia in March before an away qualifier against Andorra on the Saturday before the Three Lions’ long-awaited City Ground return.

England’s only previous fixture against Senegal came as recently as the winter World Cup of 2022 in Qatar, where a 3-0 win for the Three Lions set up an ill-fated quarter-final against France.

Jordan Henderson, Harry Kane and Bukayo Saka scored the goals for Gareth Southgate’s England in Al Khor, settling early nerves and eventually easing the Three Lions to victory in which Jude Bellingham played an important role.

Aliou Cisse’s Senegal squad at the World Cup included no fewer than ten players from English clubs. Among them, captain Kalidou Koulibaly was at Chelsea with goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, Pape Matar Sarr was at Spurs, and Cheikhou Kouyate was at Forest.

Sheffield United’s Iliman Ndiaye was in the squad with future Everton team-mate Idrissa Gueye, who is Senegal’s most capped player with 119 appearances for his country.

The Lions of Teranga are 17th in the current FIFA World Rankings, their highest-ever position. England are fourth in the rankings behind world champions Argentina in first, France in second and European champions Spain in third.

Tuchel, who is ranked at no.10 in FourFourTwo’s list of the best managers in the world right now, will name his first England squad in March for the qualifiers against Albania and Latvia.

After the relative consistency of Southgate’s selection of experienced internationals and the debuts dished out by interim head coach Lee Carsley during the ultimately successful Nations League campaign last year, Tuchel’s first selection will provide the first real indication of the direction he plans to take.