With both teams having wrapped up qualification to the 2016 European Championships a long time ago, Spain face England in one of the most appetizing international friendlies of the current international break. The game is due to take place tonight in Alicante at the Estadio José Rico Pérez with kick-off at 7.45pm GMT which is 8.45pm local time.

The stadium has a capacity of 30,000 and since Alicante is located very close to Benidorm which is a very popular destination for holiday makers we can expect to see an impressive continguent of Three Lions suppporters. In recent playings of this game England hold 13 wins to Spain’s 8 wins with 2 draws.

From a Manchester United point of view we already know that Wayne Rooney will not start and indeed is unlikely to play at all with the captain being saved for the friendly against France at Wembley on Tuesday night. There may well be a few of the other United players featuring for England however with Phil Jones and Chris Smalling probably getting the call in the centre of defense and Michael Carrick likely being selected in midfield by Roy Hodgson.

For the Spanish Manchester United players, David De Gea may well get the call to look after the Spanish goal and Juan Mata is likely to get the start as one of the Spanish attacking threats and as the Telegraph reported Mata had some positive things to say when talking about the match and what kind of a chance England have to win Euro 2016, Mata said, “England have youth, desire to win and the capacity to achieve something important – you only need to look at their qualifying campaign in which they won every game. The match will be a tough test for us and for them to see what level they’re at. I believe that England are one of our direct rivals for Euro 2016.”

Spain are favourites for the game with them at 8/11, England at 4/1 and a draw at 5/2 according to Coral.