England’s Raheem Sterling eager for real challenge against Spain and France

England’s Raheem Sterling says he is ‘still only a child’ on the international scene

On Calle Gerona, the main strip in Benidorm, they were preparing for the annual British Fancy Dress Day. It is the busiest day in town all year, with up to 20,000 people taking part, a giant free paella in the square and police cordons to seal off the roads for the culmination of Benidorm’s fiesta week, ultimately finishing with what is known locally as Hangover Friday.

Away from the seafront, it was a little less raucous at the spa hotel where every England player has his own private garden. Benidorm isn’t the usual place England might select, having initially expected a game in Madrid or Valencia, but the Spanish authorities knew the festival would mean a sellout and the priority for Roy Hodgson was to arrange a game that, for the first time in a long time, would test his team against authentic category-A opponents.

These are certainly the occasions when we might learn more about the state of Hodgson’s team than could be picked up from the lopsided evidence of their qualifying group. No other team won all 10 games in qualifying but it has always felt slightly dangerous to read too much into England’s record when the opposition featured home-and-away encounters with San Marino, Lithuania, Estonia and Slovenia. England’s qualification was virtually assured from the day they beat Switzerland away in their first match and, needing stronger opponents, it is easy to understand why the Football Association accepted the invitation to play in Alicante’s 29,500-capacity Estadio José Rico Pérez on Friday.

Beyond that, there is France’s visit to Wembley on Tuesday, followed by the trip to Berlin to play Germany in March. The games have been strategically picked on the back of what was, in essence, a bland qualifying programme and the onus is now on England to show they can hold their own against three of the nations who will have aspirations of winning Euro 2016.

"We know it was a good run in qualifying but this is the real challenge now," Raheem Sterling, preparing to win his 19th cap, said. "We are going to be playing some of Europe’s best teams and this is where we really get to see where we are in terms of the tournament in the summer. Hopefully we can show what we can really do – and if we can, it’s a real barometer of where we are."

Sterling, to put it into context, is one of only nine players in Hodgson’s squad to have started 10 or more games for England and, using his own description, “still only a child” on the international scene. John Stones has played only once at centre-half – a 6-0 win in San Marino – and Ross Barkley’s emergence in the last few games has to be measured against the standard of opposition.

Hodgson must be tempted to see whether Barkley can excel in the same way against a side of Spain’s refinement and, likewise, he must be looking closely at whether Wayne Rooney can still menace the better teams. Rooney has scored 10 times in 12 internationals since the World Cup but the level of competition has just gone up a couple of notches. Spain may not be as formidable as they were earlier in Vicente del Bosque’s reign, losing friendlies to France, Germany and Holland since the World Cup, but it is a measure of their standing that in their last qualifying match, a 1-0 win in Ukraine, their substitutes included Iker Casillas, Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets, Pedro, Juan Mata and Santi Cazorla, even though David Silva and Sergio Ramos were missing.

England also have a friendly arranged at Wembley – three days after the game against Germany – against Holland and, even though the Dutch failed to qualify, Hodgson is mindful that by selecting a high level of opposition there is the risk of quelling England’s momentum, in the way that the back-to-back defeats against Germany and Chile did before the last World Cup. On the flipside, an encouraging result in Alicante would do a lot to massage the team’s self‑belief and in Sterling’s case there is the distinct feeling that he can start to flourish again in England’s colours.

Sterling reflected here on the move that took him from Liverpool to Manchester City, describing himself as "stubborn" in the face of prolonged criticism, and recalled Hodgson’s advice after supporters of the Merseyside club had booed him in England’s friendly against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin. He told me to block it out," Sterling said.

"He said: ‘The level of football you are playing now, you will get stuff like that and it’s about how you deal with it.’ He said to look at the players like Stevie [Gerrard] and Wazza [Rooney]. They have been criticised or been in the public eye for the wrong or right reasons, so he just said to block it out and focus on my football, and try to do well for my country."