Roy Hodgson prepares England for penalty shoot-out ahead of quarter-final clash with Italy

Having banished one banshee by surviving a goal-line controversy against Ukraine, Hodgson now faces up to another of England’s demons with the chilling prospect of penalties against Italy in Sunday’s Euro 2012 quarter-final in Kiev. It’s knockout time. It could be shoot-out time.

This is a perilous path that so many of Hodgson’s predecessors have travelled before, losing their footing and tumbling out of tournaments. Bobby Robson, Glenn Hoddle and Sven-Goran Eriksson have all suffered such fates. Terry Venables negotiated one but perished four days later.

Hodgson understands the national phobia of being placed on the spot. “It’s because we’ve lost important matches on penalties so it’s going to be that way,’’ he shrugged. “When you are working with the England national team, the past is always going to weigh heavily. Everything we do today is compared with something that happened in the past.”

Those are the rules of engagement for those tasked with tackling the years of hurt, with taking the team a stage further than managed by such patriots as Robson at Italia 90 and Venables at Euro 96.

Hodgson tells his men to get ready if Italy showdown goes to penalties

The England manager has promised his team will be fully prepared should Sunday’s European  Championship quarter-final against Italy in Kiev go down to spot-kicks.

‘We have practised already but we’ll take it even more seriously now,’ he said. ‘But it’s really your composure, your confidence, your ability to really block everything out and forget the occasion that means you score or you don’t score.

Hodgson has to choose his first five penalty takers but he will turn to skipper Steven  Gerrard to lead by example. Hodgson told him he would take the penalties before the opening group game against France.

Gerrard has scored 27 of 34 attempts in his career, although he did miss one in the quarter-final shootout against Portugal at the 2006 World Cup.

“Unfortunately we have lost two very, very important semi-finals on penalties,’’ Hodgson said, “so I presume that’s going to be there during all my time as national coach. Probably when a national coach comes 20 years hence he will be asked the same question as well.’’

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