If England is to confound pre-tournament expectations and progress beyond Sunday's Euro 2012 quarterfinal with Italy, it is going to have to make a little bit of history to do it.

The criteria may seem slightly esoteric, but it is an inconvenient truth that England has never beaten a World Cup-winning nation in the knock-out rounds of a major tournament held on foreign soil.

And if England is successful against the Italians, it will reach the semifinals only to be confronted by another reminder of past failings - namely that it has never beaten Germany in a tournament staged outside of Wembley.

While the significance of the various gloomy statistics can be debated - England did, after all, record a 1-0 win over Argentina in a high-stakes group game at the 2002 World Cup - Roy Hodgson admits that victory over the Azzurri in Kiev on Sunday would represent a significant breakthrough.

"It would be a great step forward, there's no question of that. All of these negative statistics that we have to learn to deal with can only be put to bed when you get a positive one, that's the bottom line," said the England manager, who became an experienced ghost-buster during his spell at West Bromwich Albion.

"I came across it quite often - 'We haven't won here for 30 years, we've never finished above Aston Villa, we've never won a game at Stoke, we've never done this, we've never done that'.

"I got quite used to it in the end and I was lucky enough there to put a few of those hoodoos to bed ... and that's the only way you can do it."

Agence France-Presse in KRAKOW, Poland

(China Daily 06/24/2012 page12)