Showing posts with label Roy Hodgson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roy Hodgson. Show all posts
England were knocked out of Euro 2012 in all too familiar circumstances, losing 4-2 on penalties against Italy following a goalless draw in Kiev.
Riccardo Montolivo missed Italy's second penalty but then Ashley Young and Ashley Cole failed to score before Alessandro Diamanti stroked home the winning spot-kick.
It was England's sixth exit in penalty shoot-outs at European Championships and World Cups in the last 22 years.
Roy Hodgson's side had rode their luck to stay on level terms after 120 minutes as Italy were far the better side with 35 attempts on goal, to England's nine, but failed to break the deadlock thanks to their own profligacy and some dogged English defending.
However their greater nerve from 12 yards means it will be the Azzurri who will face Germany in Thursday's second semi-final at the same ground and Hodgson's side go home.
There were chances aplenty in an open first-half.
The tone was set as early as the fourth minute when the ball was pulled back from the right to Daniele De Rossi who hit across his effort from 30 yards and was so unlucky to see the ball hit the woodwork with Joe Hart beaten.
England's best chance of the opening period came almost immediately when James Milner's square pass was poked towards goal by Glen Johnson from seven yards but Gianluigi Buffon clawed the effort away.
Johnson then produced a superb cross but Wayne Rooney could not direct his diving header on target from eight yards, under pressure from covering right-back Ignazio Abate.
That was after 15 minutes but from then on it was Italy who dominated with Andrea Pirlo pulling the strings in midfield and Mario Balotelli spurned a hat-trick of first-half chances.
He beat the offside trap but dallied which allowed John Terry to get back to make a crucial block and he failed to get much power on a scissors kick after a defence splitting pass from Montolivo.
But his best chance came five minutes before the break when Pirlo's cross to the back post was headed across goal by Antonio Cassano and somehow the Manchester City forward stabbed over the top from four yards albeit under pressure from club-mate Joleon Lescott.
Danny Welbeck did spurn a chance to test Buffon from 18 yards after a good link-up with Rooney but Italy continued to be in the ascendancy and were totally dominant in the second.
De Rossi missed a sitter four minutes after the break after Hart punched a corner only as far as Montolivo whose header was volleyed wide from seven yards by the unmarked veteran.
England's goal continued to lead a charmed life as a 30-yard blast from De Rossi was parried by Hart straight into the path of Balotelli who was denied from close range by the legs of his Eastlands team-mate before Montolivo volleyed over under pressure from Johnson.
Theo Walcott and Andy Carroll were brought on after an hour as England struggled to maintain possession and they carved out a rare chance as the Arsenal winger's cross intended for the big Liverpool striker fell to Young whose shot was deflected behind for a corner.
Hart made a sharp shot from Italian sub Diamanti before Johnson made a superb block after Marchisio's superb pass found another sub Antonio Nocerino.
England did have a chance to steal it in injury-time but Rooney's bicycle kick was over the top.
They failed to create a single chance in extra-time as they spent most of the 30 minutes camped in their own half as Italy continued to pile on the pressure.
Hart was grateful to see Diamanti's mis-hit cross strike the outside of the post and the former West Ham man was off target from 10 yards after Federico Balzaretti fizzed a ball across the area.
Italy finally found the net after 115 minutes when Nocerino headed home from close range but he was correctly ruled offside.
Although Italy have won a World Cup final in a shoot-out they had also lost five of their other six encounters and would have feared the worst when, after Balotelli and Gerrard had scored the opening efforts, Montolivo dragged his effort well past the left post.
Rooney smashed his penalty into the left corner before Pirlo had the audacity to produce a 'Panenka' chip down the middle to level at 2-2.
The disappointing Young then smashed his effort against the crossbar before Nocerino calmly placed his shot into the left corner.
Cole's effort was then saved, low to his left by Buffon, and it was left to Upton Park reject Diamanti to condemn England to their eighth quarter-final defeat in nine attempts at major tournaments away from Wembley.
It was eight years to the day since England were knocked out by Portugal on penalties in the quarter-finals of Euro 2004 and Three Lions fans can add Italy to Argentina, Germany (twice) and Portugal (twice) as nations who have held their nerve to beat their side in shoot-outs.
England opened their Euro 2012 campaign with a hard-fought 1-1 Group D draw against France at the Donbass Arena in Donetsk.
Manchester City team-mates Joleon Lescott and Samir Nasri traded first-half goals, and though his team were outplayed for long periods, England boss Roy Hodgson will be happy to take a point against the group favourites.
Sporting a 4-4-1-1 formation with nine men behind the ball for much of the game, England were limited in attack, but defended well despite surrendering their lead nine minutes after Lescott's 30th-minute header.
The technically-superior French struggled to turn their possession into clear goalscoring opportunities, and must find more cutting edge if they are to be considered serious contenders for the tournament.
Amazingly, France have still not won a European Championship match in which neither Michel Platini nor Zinedine Zidane was playing.
Hodgson opted for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain on the left side of midfield - yet the decision to select a player with just six Premier League starts to his name was both popular and logical.
Oxlade-Chamberlain provides a bold directness Stewart Downing singularly lacks, and showed his intent to run at France with some early forays.
However, the game started slowly at a less-than-full Donbass Arena populated largely by Russian fans.
Amid a limp atmosphere, both teams showed excessive caution until Ashley Young carved out a golden chance for James Milner on the quarter-hour mark.
Young played a perfectly-weighted through ball for the sprinting Milner, who took the ball past Hugo Lloris but could not find the empty net from the left side of the box. A poor miss.
France bucked up after that, dominating possession and keeping the ball far better than their opponents, with Nasri and Yohan Cabaye particularly influential.
However, it was England who took the lead when Lescott met a peach of a free-kick from Steven Gerrard with a powerful header that game Lloris no chance - the goalkeeper possibly at fault for not claiming the ball at the edge of the six-yard box.
Back came Laurent Blanc's men, and five minutes later Alou Diarra stung the hands of Joe Hart with a powerful header of his own, before nodding side seconds later.
England were not off the hook for long, and on 39 minutes Nasri levelled, drilling a low shot into the near side of Hart's goal from just outside the box.
The midfielder celebrated his goal by aiming a 'shh' gesture at the English bench - a possible reaction to comments from Gary Neville describing Nasri as "a cancer" at Arsenal, shortly before his move to City.
England backed off, with the tepid noise around the ground mirroring the poor fare on the pitch.
The biggest danger to England was arguably Milner, who gave the ball away several times in the second period, but France came no closer than when Karim Benzema struck a long shot at Hart, and Cabaye had a powerful strike deflected wide.
Scott Parker came off late on, clearly exhausted and lacking full match fitness after recovering from an Achilles injury.
Benzema tested Hart with another effort from distance in the last minute, but there was no way through.
Hodgson's England might be the most limited squad ever to reach a major tournament, but their fight and organisation may yet take them into the knockout stages.
Fernando Torres scored only his second goal of the season as Liverpool beat Blackburn Rovers 2-1 at home to move closer to Premier League safety.
Torres’s last goal came in Liverpool’s last Premier League win, at home to West Brom on August 29, but he was on good form after a midweek rest as the club’s new owners watched their first game at Anfield.
Sotiris Kyrgiakos had opened the scoring for the hosts only for a Jamie Carragher own-goal to bring it level soon afterwards.
But Torres quickly pounced to win the match, with all three goals coming in a five-minute spell in the second half.
The result leaves the Reds third-bottom, behind Blackburn and Fulham on goal difference but only three points from seventh place.
Under-pressure boss Roy Hodgson saw his side dominate the match with an excellent performance from Paul Robinson preventing them from running away with it.
Liverpool welcomed back Torres, Steven Gerrard, Raul Meireles and Lucas after they were rested for the Europa League draw at Napoli, and they utterly dominated the first half.
The Reds had close to three quarters of possession and only failed to take the lead on account of some excellent goalkeeping from Robinson and some poor finishing.
Meireles somehow poked wide on eight minutes after Robinson did well to keep Joe Cole’s low finish out following superb link-up play between Maxi Rodriguez and a brighter-than-usual Torres, who was carefully tracked by a hawk-like Phil Jones.
The former England goalkeeper made an even better save 10 minutes later, denying Kyrgiakos’s free header with a spectacular tip over, and was equal to Gerrard’s trademark piledriver seven minutes after that.
Soon after Robinson again did well from Gerrard, keeping out his free-kick with Martin Skrtel and Meireles flying in, while Portugal international Meireles was denied when his thunderbolt struck Michel Salgado square on the jaw.
Salgado recovered and from the resultant corner Lucas bettered Meireles’s early miss, heading over from point-blank range as he leant back into Kyrgiakos’s flick-on, while in first-half stoppage time Maxi weighed in with a boo-boo of his own as he somehow failed to connect with an inch-perfect Gerrard cross.
Somehow it was goalless at the break but that changed soon after the restart.
Liverpool took a deserved lead two minutes into the second half when Kyrgiakos - always an aerial threat at set-pieces - powered another Gerrard corner in off Martin Olsson on the line.
It should have been two three minutes later, but Robinson again pulled off a world-class save as Maxi flew in to head a Gerrard corner on goal.
From the resultant break Blackburn were level, their first real chance of the match taken in bizarre fashion as, following a burst down the right from Benjani, El-Hadji Diouf’s finish was cleared off the line by Paul Konchesky only to rebound in off Carragher.
It was barely deserved but the home side bounced back as Torres finally broke his season’s duck with a crisp first-time finish as Cole’s excellent cross found the Spain star unmarked at the far post, although the marking was slack from Rovers.
Kyrgiakos again went close from a corner, bouncing a bullet header into the ground and inches over the bar, while a rare spell of Blackburn possession yielded a Morten Gamst Pedersen shot that flew just over.
Liverpool had been hunting for a third but that close shave saw them retreat into their half and the game degenerate into a scrappy phase.
That suited Rovers, who employed a direct approach to win a succession of set pieces that Liverpool rallied to resist.
David N'Gog was brought on for Cole as the hosts looked to keep the ball higher up the pitch and it seemed to work as Liverpool had the better of the latter stages, Meireles having another long shot blocked and Torres guilty of poor control when Gerrard sent him in.
Blackburn were unable to put Liverpool under any pressure in injury time and the hosts closed out their first win in seven league games, relieving some of the pressure on Hodgson.
