England enjoy warm welcome at first session in Germany

England’s squad began their final preparations for UEFA EURO 2024 on German soil, with their first training session at their base on Tuesday afternoon.

The Three Lions arrived in Germany for this summer’s tournament on Monday evening and quickly settled into their new surroundings before the work continued ahead of Sunday’s opening game with Serbia.

Gareth Southgate and his players will be training at the Ernst-Abbe-Sportfeld, home of German club Carl Zeiss Jena in Erfurt, for the duration of EURO 2024. It's a venue which has previously hosted England, most notably the women's senior team and the MU17s who played there in the UEFA U17 EURO Finals in Germany in 2009.

And they enjoyed their first taste of the venue in what was a fully open and public session with all 26 players taking part, as children from local grassroots and youth teams in Erfurt and the local community were able to watch along with a number of travelling fans from the England Supporters’ Travel Club and locally-based Three Lions fans.

Before training, Southgate welcomed local government officials Carsten Müller (Head of Jenakultur), Benjamin Koppe (Head of sports department) and Christian Gerlitz, (vice mayor) to say thank-you for the warm welcome afforded to the England group following their arrival.

Following the session, the players were able to spend time meeting the youngsters and fans, as well as giving out some gift bags and signing autographs. 

Earlier in the day, the squad had attended their official UEFA photoshoot for the competition which begins on Friday evening when the host nation take on Scotland.