England are set to arrange a friendly with Paraguay in order to win the World Cup bidding. The English bid is making a late push to sway ExCo members ahead of Thursday’s vote.

Leoz, along with the other Latin American ExCo members, is expected to vote for the Spain-Portugal bid as their first choice but the English are hoping to persuade them to vote for them as their second choice, which could be crucial if England were left in a final round showdown with Russia. The English bid is understood to trail both the Iberian and Russian bids but is hoping to generate some late momentum in the final days.

England had been planning to play Argentina in Copenhagen to open a new stadium in the city but, because the Danish national team are playing on the Wednesday Feb 9, the friendly would have had to be staged on the Tuesday, which the Argentina FA felt was too early.

Paraguay, who England last played in the 2006 World Cup finals, proved an ideal solution, for both Capello and the 2018 bid team.