The top-ranked Belgians will meet Portugal, Finland and Norway in Brussels and Switzerland before they leave for the tournament in June.
The will play fellow finalists Portugal on March 29 -- the only international Belgium have scheduled before league seasons end across Europe in May.
“I don’t think that is a bad thing, the calendar is already so overloaded for the players. My players from the Premier League (in England) will play some 60 games in a season, that is more than enough,” Wilmots said.
The team will assemble in Knokke, Flanders on May 19 before spending a week in Lausanne. They will play against the Swiss in Geneva on May 28.
Belgium’s squad will then be based in Genk from May 29-June 6, during which time will travel the short distance to the capital for friendlies against Finland on June 1 and Norway on June 5.
Belgium leave for their base in Bordeaux on June 7 and take on Italy (June 13 in Lyon), Ireland (June 18 in Bordeaux) and Sweden (June 22 in Nice) in their opening round group.
Wilmots said that Finland would offer a similar style of play to that of Sweden, while they had hoped to prepare for the Ireland showdown with a warm-up against Scotland. But when that match failed to materialise, they turned to Norway.
“We are sorry we weren’t able to come to an agreement with Scotland. They wanted too much money but in the Norwegians, who also play in a British style, we have a satisfactory sparring partner,” he added.
(Reporting by Mark Gleeson, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
