England vs Spain schedule: TV guide, time, date and venue of international friendly

England vs Spain will hopefully be an end-to-end, entertaining encounter

Wayne Rooney Gareth Southgate England — Gareth Southgate will know the experience of Wayne Rooney will be key if England are to beat SpainReuters

The glamour international friendly between England and Spain will be held at Wembley on Tuesday and it will give Gareth Southgate another opportunity to make his case for being the permanent manager. Both teams are coming off comfortable wins in FIFA World Cup qualifying and now they will target a good workout before the international schedule goes into its winter break.

While a friendly is never a great barometer to judge where the team is currently, with Southgate replacing Sam Alalrdyce after the latter was let go by The FA, this is a really good chance for the former Middlesbrough defender to show he is the right man for the job.

The 3-0 win over Scotland has already pretty much ensured Southgate will be named England's permanent manager, according to reports in the UK, but an impressive performance against Spain will tilt the scale further in his favour and leave the FA with no doubts.

"We've got a different challenge to prepare for against Spain, which will be a great test for us," Southgate said after England's win over Scotland on Friday.

"Playing Spain is one of the biggest challenges we can face. They have a clear identity of how they play throughout all their age groups. It's going to be a huge test for us. It's a good challenge and a different type of challenge to prepare for."

Southgate will not have the services of Harry Kane to call upon, after the striker was sent back to Tottenham in order to continue his recovery from an ankle injury.

"Harry reported for us last week but obviously he hadn't played a full game for some seven weeks," Southgate told FATV.

"Tottenham were more than happy for him to come with us. It was never really my intention to start him in a game and I think it's important that he gets a different training program to what we're going to follow over the next couple of days."

While Southgate looks to make his case, this is also an important game for new Spain manager Julen Lopetegui. Having taken over from Vicente Del Bosque after an underwhelming showing in Euro 2016, Lopetegui has guided Spain to three victories in four World Cup qualifying fixtures.

A win over England will give the manager some added confidence, that the path he is taking with this Spain team is the right one.