Men’s senior team will play their first match since 2019 with hope for a springboard to the sport’s future

Resilience. The England men’s futsal team will likely need more than a little of it when they kick off their Uefa 2026 Euros main-round qualifying campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday. Thankfully, resilience is something the players and staff are well-versed in.

The game will be the first for the men’s senior team since 2019 after the programme was axed when the Football Association cut all funding to elite futsal four years ago. Uncertainty has defined the period since, and while the fixture in Zenica, a city north of Sarajevo, will be a landmark trip, the journey has been far from straightforward.