Coach at a loss after jinx strikes again

Roy Hodgson said he was at a loss to explain how England's penalty curse could be lifted after watching his side suffer the agony of a shoot-out defeat to Italy in Kiev on Sunday.

For the sixth time in seven attempts since the 1990 World Cup, England bowed out of a major tournament on penalties as Ashley Young and Ashley Cole missed from 12 yards to hand Italy a 4-2 shootout win.

Hodgson said he had been confident in England's five penalty-takers before the shootout had got under way at the Olympic Stadium.

"We've watched these players taking penalties in training because penalty-taking has become a bit of an obsession for us in English football, and they've done extremely well," Hodgson said.

"But you can't reproduce the tension, you can't reproduce the occasion, you can't reproduce the nervousness."

Hodgson spoke admiringly of the composure shown by Italy's man-of-the-match Andrea Pirlo, who chipped his third penalty delicately straight down the middle as England goalkeeper Joe Hart dived to his right.

"The sort of cool calculating way that Pirlo had the confidence to chip the goalkeeper - that's something you either have or you don't," Hodgson said. "There's no amount of coaching or training that can reproduce that."

Hodgson also defended the penalty-taking records of Cole and Young, noting they both had experience of taking spot-kicks for their clubs.

"You saw Ashley Cole's penalty in the Champions League final and you've seen Ashley Young convert many penalties for Watford and Manchester United," he said.

"We were confident we had five really good penalty-takers but unfortunately for us two missed."

AFP